Scribblings

Quiztime

2005-09-26T10:35:00.000+08:00

I got to this quiz from Chai's post. I have always believed I am a red. And here is the result to prove me right!!

You are the color red. You are the most
controversial of all the colors. You are often
easily angered, but as easily as you got
excited, you come down. When angered, do you
have the tendency to be malicious? Afterwards,
do you end up begging for forgiveness? Maybe.
But you're incredibly generous, and, odd
enough, needy. You love to hate, and
sometimes, you hate to love. This color
describes you as generally edgy. When in a bad
situation, you're pessimistic, and when you're
in a good situation, you're extremely
optimistic. You're painfully tempermental, and
sometimes it hurts the ones you love. But with
an exciting and stimulating attitude, you enjoy
talking to people and being social. But aside
from your bold and outgoing attitude, you're
attention-needing and attention-getting. This
color is associated with lust and desire--and
you are both lust and desirous. You're a
protective person when it comes to the people
you love. You're incredibly sharp-witted and
powerful (not to mention intelligent!).

What color are you? (Amazingly detailed & accurate--with pics!)
brought to you by Quizilla

The Weekend Past...

2005-09-14T16:12:00.000+08:00

Just an account of the weekend gone by...

AG and I started the weekend with a dinner at Tandoor on Friday. Tandoor is the Indian restaurant at Holiday Inn. It had been recommended by some colleague of AG's. We had booked a table thinking this would be necessary, it being a friday evening. But when we reached at 8:30, the place was two-thirds empty. The decor was an attempt at emulating the rajasthani style but the effect was unimpressive and the lighting was too bright which I though was a bad idea for a restaurant with not too good interiors. Now bright lighting is a very good thing if you have architectural details or ornate cornices or crystal chandeliers to show like the Tiffin room at Raffles, but if all you have are bad replicas of Rajasthani paintings, then I would say stick with soft, dim lights. Anyways we bravely went ahead and ordered food. I actually even ordered a cocktail (something that AG wisely refrained from). The cocktail was a poor concoction and it was brought to me in a simple ordinary glass, not even one of those fancy cocktail glasses. I knew then that this didn't augur well for the rest of the dinner. But nevertheless I looked forward to my tomato shorba. Ugh!.... that is the only thing I can say about that vile brew they brought in and called soup. And the paneer tikka we ordered with it was average. For main course we had asked for Handi chicken, roomali rotis, pudina paranthas and the ubiquitous dal makhani. The Handi Chicken had been described on their menu as chicken cooked in peshawari spices. I would advise them to change it to chicken drowned in peshawari spices... so strong was the taste of cardamom and cinnamon in the dish. The roti and parantha were disappointing, if anything could disappoint after what we had already been put through! The star of the evening was the humble dal makhani. It was among the best I have eaten. But what a pity the rest of the evening's experience was so off-putting. I don't think we will go back there.

Saturday, early morning saw us jostling among a few hundred other Singaporeans at the Suntec convention centre hunting for good travel deals at the NATAS fair. Thankfully we had gone there with a clear plan in mind. We would get in, buy a good deal for a 3 night stay in Cambodia and get out as fast as we can. The entire thing still took us 3 hours!! But at the end of it we had our bookings for a 3 night stay in Le Meridien at Siem Reap and return tickets on Silkair for the Diwali weekend in November. And we came out of the convention hall hungry enough to start gnawing away at our knuckles. Headed straight to Chutney Cafe in the basement food court at Suntec. IMO chutney cafe is the best place for authentic North indian fare at prices which doesn't require you to sell yourself first! And those people have now started buffet lunches on weekends. AG and I feasted on divinely soft garlic naans, tangy paneer makhani, dal, fish tikka masala, chicken curry and topped it all off with some delectable gulab jamuns. The weekend before AG and I had set out for Esplanade and ended up at Chutney cafe for evening tea. They serve some amazing samosas and to-die-for peas kachori... with fresh mint chutney and sweet tamarind chutney! The service is horrid but the food more than makes up.

Saturday evening... watched Salaam Namaste. Bedok Theatre does have some lousy management. And every time we go there they seem to have scaled new heights! This time they kept the whole crowd (and trust me there was quite a crowd!!) sweating and cursing in the staircase. But since Bedok is the only place showing Hindi movies, we are left with no choice but to grin and bear. The movie was VFM or paisa vasool as we would say in Bombay. Saif and Preity look great, though I do think it is time Preity had that facelift! And the movie has the usual feel of those in the Johar-Chopra genre. It also uses the taboo topic of live-in relationships... a first for a mainstream Indian movie. The music is average and the editing in the second half leaves much to be desired for. The movie starts well and the comedy from Javed Jaffrey hits all the right notes. Arshad Warsi is wasted in his regular comic side kick character. And Jugal Hansraj has been brought back from the dead to do a small nice-boy role, which is the only kind of role the poor guy can essay with some conviction. The idea itself is 'inspired' from the Hugh Grant starrer Nine Months and the last few scenes are a direct lift from the movie. But all said, the movie is worth a dekko.

Sunday, attended a desi blogger's meet at Mindcafe. Mindcafe is this lovely little hangout place tucked away on Prinsep Street and is based around this cool concept of board games. It provides a huge collection of board games to its patrons in addition to the usual cafe fare of fries and drinks. The meet itself was well-attended and was quite a bit of fun. It was a great opportunity to meet fellow bloggers and indulge in some general chit-chat. Here is a list of attendees:

Akshay
Ashwin
Chetan Bhagat and Anusha Bhagat
Deepak Sarda
Deepak Jois
Divya
Gayathri
Kaps
Tanya
Anita
Nitin Pai
Preetam Rai
Prasanna and Mahesh
Ram C
Sadagopan
Sherene
Sunil – is into Podcasting. Plans to start a blog soon.
Vani
And of course... yours truly!

Ended the weekend with Sehar. Now, I have always suspected that Arshad Warsi is a very good actor and can do far more than the funny side kick. Sehar has proved that these suspicions are well-founded. The movie has some excellent acting and slick, slick editing. The storyline is your usual good cop against bad thugs and corrupt system. But the acting, editing and dialogues have made this movie a delight to sit through. The dialogues are written in beautiful Hindustani and is like music to one's ears. A must watch!

Coming weekend, we have planned a trip to KL. Now wading through this week trying to reach the end of it. Hmph!

The Namesake: A review of the 1st 100 pages!

2005-09-09T13:43:00.000+08:00

Am reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri or rather am reading it on my commute to and from work and then being haunted by the book for the rest of the day. And this book threatens to sweep me away in its flow. Many are the times when I have to stop reading, look up and blink to stem the tears that otherwise threaten to trickle down as I sit there in the bus reading the book. And many are the times when my throat is thick with emotion but a warm feeling of recognition runs through me... "Oh! I know how Ashima is feeling or I know how sad she must be or I know exactly how she must be craving for Indian food or just I know...". I have not progressed much through the book, still reading the initial portion where Gogol has started to realise that his name is rather unusual. But whatever I have read of the book has endeared it to me... its characters are people I see in me, in my friends who feel the same way... so far away from home and family, even in my mom who came to Bombay after her marriage and my dad who left his home in Kerala to come to Bombay when he was in his early twenties. Something needs to be said of the genius of the author who has managed to bring out the bereftness and the acute loneliness felt by the first generation Indian migrants who leave their country and their warm, extended families behind to make a life for themselves, in countries so different in every possible way from what they have always known as home. Jhumpa Lahiri is herself a 2nd generation migrant, born in London and brought up in Rhode Island. Inspite of this (or maybe because of this), she has managed to draw out every nuance of emotion that her parents might have felt.

The book starts with Ashima preparing an adaptation of that quintessential Indian snack... the bhel puri, using Rice Krispies (combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green chili pepper, wishing there was mustard oil to pour into the mix.) Note the usage of the more pungent red onions so typical of India and not those colorless, insipid white onions which are common abroad. This is an example of how expertly Lahiri has managed to use simple actions to bring to life the small things we all do to keep alive the illusion of home away from home. One nods with understanding and empathy when the book narrates how Ashima repeatedly reads the couple of Bengali magazies she had brought along with her in her efforts to hold on to the littlest things that remind her of home. And then there is the fierce pride with which Ashima and Ashoke perseveringly cling to their culture... trying to christen their son with a 'bhalo naam' (name used for official purposes) and 'dak naam' (name used by family and friends) in accordance to the bengali tradition. There is also that lovely description of Gogol's anna prasan (rice ceremony... where a baby is fed solid food for the first time) which his parents try to celebrate in a manner as closely adherent to the traditions as possible (Ashima regrets that the plate on which the rice is heaped is melamine, not silver or brass or the very least stainless-steel).

Over time they develop friendships with other Bengali families whom they meet often to eat "shrimp cutlets fried in saucepans" and in true Bengali way discuss arts and how can one forget... politics (argue riotously over the films of Ritwik Ghatak versus those of Satyajit Ray. The CPIM versus the Congress party. North Calcutta versus South. For hours they argue about the politics of America, a country in which none of them is eligible to vote.) For their kids sake they cheerfully also adopt more and more of the American ways of life and the American traditions... Thanksgiving, Christmas, hot dogs and hamburgers. "Still, they do what they can." They also take the children to watch Kathakali performances sitar recitals and also the Apu triology!! They ensure the kids learn Bengali and also of Subhas Chandra Bose. They drag them to Saraswati and Durga pujos. As you read on the feeling strengthens that Ashima and Ashok are people you know and in a way are people that you are.

There is this very touching moment when Ashima learns of her father's death of a heart attack. And eventually there are many more of these bad news. "As their lives in New England swell with fellow Bengali friends, the members of that other, former life, those who know Ashima and Ashoke not by their good names but as Monu and Mithu, slowly dwindle". The kids, not having bonded much with their relatives, never comprehend the depths of their parents sorrow at these deaths and are "embarrassed at the sight of their parents' tears". And Lahiri drives home the desolation in a sentence which I think is going to stick with me for the rest of my life. She says... "In some senses Ashoke and Ashima live the lives of the extremely aged, those for whom everyone they once knew and loved is lost, those who survive and are consoled by memory alone."

Read the book if you are an Indian living abroad... it will speak to you and several times you will mentally hug it as you would a dear friend who empathises with you, read it if your parents were 1st generation migrants from India... the book will bring alive for you an aspect of their lives which you often must have felt and which must yet not have been something you could identify with or understand completely, read it if you have children or dear ones abroad... you will for once understand that their lives in those rich countries abroad is still so poor... bereft of the richness that comes from living at home, near loved ones.

Since I am only at the first 100 pages, I know it is too early to review this book or even say too much about it... having yet to touch upon the primary plot of the book. But I wanted to write this post now so that I can focus on these first few pages which have touched me so immensely. Let's see... if the rest of the book manages to fulfil the promise shown by these intial few pages then you will hear more from me of this book and its characters.

Our WOMAD experience

2005-08-31T10:09:00.000+08:00

Went to WOMAD last saturday. WOMAD is this wandering music fest which visits Singapore every year for 3 days. AG and I had been seeing the handouts and flyers all over town and had been telling ourselves that this year no matter what we will make it to the fest. (Last year we got lazy!!!).

So Saturday, we reached the Fort Canning Park grounds at around 7:00, and found the place all crawling with fellow music lovers. The place was set up with 4 stages (Top stage, Fort Stage, Fort Green Stage, The Gallery) for the performances and myriad tents selling food, souvenirs, drinks, jewellery and even Reiki and palm reading.

Aparna, Vivek, Divya and Kanags had reached punctually and were already enjoying Bill Cobham (USA) playing the drums at Top Stage. We wandered around checking out the place and searching for what else... food :) Finally we settled for some Indian fare dished out from one of those tents and collected our complimentary bottles of Coke light. Filled up... we poked around at the various stages. First we listened in a bit at the Bill Cobham performance. The man was good but got repetitive so we moved on to the Fort Green stage where Idan Raichel (Israel) was playing from his first ever solo album. This too was not really our cup of tea and we decided to join the rest of the gang at the Fort Stage to watch Les Yeux Noir (France). And boy!! was it a clever move!! The band plays some incredible music inspired by Central European gypsy and folk tunes... instantly lifting and soulful at the same time. We twirled, tapped our feet, clapped, snapped fingers, swayed, did the slow gypsy hip wriggle... all to the music of these magicians. And to top it there was some delectable eye candy too. (Am drooling even as I write this!!) The lead singer was a charmer with his roguish looks, great sense of humor, killer smile. And as if this wasn't enough the man could sing divine and play the violin like magic. The drummer too was quite a killer!! After the performance I had to roll my tongue back in and force my jaw shut!

Right next to Fort Stage was the Top stage and we moved there to listen to Akim El Sikameya (Algeria). He started well and had the audience on its feet swaying and clapping from the very start. But the music tapered off and we soon moved back to Fort stage to watch Ravibandhu Vidyapathy and Ensemble from Sri Lanka. The musicians were attired in traditional Sri Lankan outfits and the instruments they carried were cousins of some Indian instruments. There were 2 different kinds of drums, the morsing, ghatam, an instrument very like the bansuri but shorter, and a few other instruments unique to Sri Lanka. The performance started 15 minutes late and the crowd was getting restive. But once they started they had the audience enthralled. The music was earthy and fast, interspersed with soulful interludes from the bansuri. Then there was the jugalbandi or thanyavarthanam, as it is called in carnatic classical music, where the various instruments played competing with each other.

They were still wrapping up when we left to attend the much awaited Dhol Foundation Workshop. The gallery was jam packed with eager fans of this group which plays the traditional Bhangra music. Sheema Mukherjee was still performing on the sitar when we arrived. She was uninspiring and a majority of the crowd looked clearly bored. But she played on blissfully unaware of the restive crowd and rudely ignoring the pleas from the organisers to wrap up as her time was long over and the next performer was waiting. The Dhol Foundation team started late and since it was a workshop, insisted on discoursing on the dhol and bhangra music to the audience which was impatiently waiting for them to actually play something. The rest of our gang moved on after a while to the Fort Green Stage where Apache Indian was to perform soon. AG and I lagged behind. We got lucky and after enjoying the Bhangra music for sometime we ran down to Fort Green Stage to catch Apache Indian and his group.

This was the icing on the cake of this wonderful evening. Both AG and I are old fans of Apache Indian and the man is a great performer. He had us sweating it out, jumping, screaming, dancing to his songs. And he performed all the old favorites... Arranged Marriage, Chak The, Boom Shak A Lak....

When he finished, it was past midnight and we hurried down to the road to catch a cab before the rest of the mad crowd would join us in hunting down the cabs or would start calling in for them. We got lucky and were soon bundled in a cab, hurtling home, bathed in sweat and drunk on music... telling each other how our bodies will hurt the next day and hoping the maid comes in late so that we get some extra time to sleep off. Also next day I was to attend a workshop at the National Library on Spoken Word Poetry. But that is for another post! Enough said for now!

A restaurant review - Saffron

2005-08-26T09:51:00.000+08:00

AG had a S$20 voucher for Saffron and we being the foodphiles we are, couldn't wait beyond the first available friday to drop in. Also since AG had already eaten there with his colleagues and liked the chicken tikka and paneer makhani, he was ardently selling the idea of a Friday dinner there. So off we went last Friday.

Saffron is this rather small restaurant on one of the roads approaching boat quay. Since it is not on Boat Quay proper, it doesn't see the stampede that the restaurants situated on that stretch do. And it is also located in one of those quaint Chinese shophouse buildings. I reached before AG did and the doorman/waiter asked me to come in. I was pleasantly surprised because, 'one'...there was a doorman and he WAS standing at the door and 'two'...he had the presence of mind to ask me to wait inside. And when I refused he actually pulled out one of the chairs at the tables set outside. (By then I was almost fainting in surprise at finding this rare display of good service). So there I sat people-watching and waiting.

AG arrived soon and we betook ourselves in. The place was furnished with the mandatory Indian looking paintings and silk cloth framed thingamjigs that everybody who calls themselves a chic Indian eatery seem to be doing these days. We ordered our drinks (chardonnay for me and peach lassi for AG) and starters (chicken tikka and aubergine kebab). A coupla minutes later one of the waiters got us these pale-yellowish drinks in miniature glasses... 'Welcome drink ma'am' ... Wonders never cease I tell you!

AG and I sipped on the mango yoghurt drink, chatted about our day and waited for our order to materialise. Our drinks came in first... Syrah for me and AG's lassi... "Syrah??... But I had asked for the Chardonnay". An apology and some head shaking later my wine glass was brought in. The chardonnay was rather good... crisp and light and out of a fresh bottle, not poured out of a half-used bottle stashed in the refrigerator for half the week. The peach lassi was... well different. After about 30 minutes of waiting and listening to the rumblings of our complaining bellies we were delighted to see the waiter coming towards us with the starters. 'Tandoori Chicken' and 'Aubergine Kebab' he muttered as he placed the dishes on the table. I looked at the 'Tandoori Chicken' and then at AG. AG meanwhile was fuming. "Who took our order", he roared... the waiter came and stood before us like a lamb brought to slaughter. "Sorry sir, blah-blah--blah... so you see it was not my fault". "I don't care whose fault it was, but can I get my Chicken tikka and FAST".

Another 15 minutes spend downing wine and picking at the sad aubergine kebab, which by the way was aubergine stuffed with potatoes and cashew nuts and roasted in a tandoor. The chicken tikka arrived at last and it was worth the wait. Tender, fresh chicken marinated just right and tandoor-ed just right as well. Not as spicy as we Indians like it but then a major part of their clientele looked Caucasian and hence the careful use of chillies and chilly powder.

For main course we had paneer makhani and naan. Paneer was soft and fresh and the gravy was tangy, slightly sweetish, very creamy... one of the best paneer makhanis I have had in Singapore!

Food was quite good barring the aubergine mistake and made up for the botched up service. And then the location is a major advantage. I love the old building the restaurant is situated in. A post dinner long walk along Singapore river or a quiet chat, sitting on the steps at boat quay is an ideal way to end the evening. I guess we will go down again and try some other stuff they serve.

Cold soup for the soul

2005-08-25T13:47:00.000+08:00

I like the way some words sound... when you say them aloud you know that the sound they make are very appropriate for the meaning they convey and that they convey that particular meaning better that any other word could. Like cantankerous... doesn't it sound so crotchety and cross. Oh... also cross... it sounds so...so... cross (if you know what I mean) :). And stutter... it is so onomatopoeiaic.
Then there are words which sound so beautiful when said aloud like...
sound
music (say this in a whisper... 'myuzic')
wilderness (lisp at the 'ess')
mystical (stress on the 'ist' of 'myst'-ical)
ethereal
elfin (I like this one since my J R R Tolkien days)
mellifluous
twilight
kismet
charisma
chutzpah
ancient

And then there are a set of words which when said together and in a particular order have a lovely effect.
For example I like:
sweet, slow, soothing (feeling de-stressed already!)
mystical, magical music
slow, sensuous circles
calming caress

Many a times I have ordered food at a restaurant serving exotic cuisine based on how the dish sounds (gazpacho, bee hoon... ). Most restaurants have a small description of the dish below its name and I am a sucker for these write ups. In fact I order stuff which I otherwise wouldn't sit at the same table with and eat it heartily... all because the description sounded absolutely divine.
Actually something similar got me thinking on the subject of this post. Yesterday I passed by this cafe which was serving cold chunky tomato soup with cucumber and coriander salad. Those words 'cold soup' set my mouth watering :) I could almost taste those two words on my tongue and let me tell you they tasted sublime... cold, sweet, peppery, tangy, soupy... hmmm... am hungry again and off to lunch. Bon Appetit!

You and I

2005-08-23T15:51:00.000+08:00

You and I
lying there...
askew, as-we-please,
beneath the pink and blue sheets.
A hundred hands,
mutithousand tongues.
The passion we just played
still shrilly running
in circles over us,
the eddies of sweat
swirling slower.
Any moment now...
we will return,
wrapped in protective layers
to our unbeautiful worlds.
We will take with us
our fists and angry eyes
and leave here waiting
our nakedness and smiles.

The new breed of Bombayites

2005-08-18T10:35:00.000+08:00

On my last visit to Bombay, I took a walk through the station road which is among the busiest of places during a weekday evening when people are returning from work or shopping at the market. Ended up feeling like an alien... all lost and clueless... completely vulnerable and clawless against the normal junta which pushes, spits, gropes, swipes, mutters, curses its way out. But the feeling was only momentary. The 1st few minutes were the most difficult because I was still in a different frame of mind and was yet to wear my 'bindaas' mask. After the realisation struck... I stopped in the middle of the road and shrugged my shoulders, arranged my face in the forbidding and don't-u-dare-mess-with-me look and then walked on, this time even my gait had changed. Gone was the aimless, carefree sauntering I had been doing... I was now walking faster, grinding the earth beneath my feet, keeping my ears twitched to the slightest of things, my sixth sense sharpened and the eyes in the back of head, wide open. This time I was aware of who was walking upto me from behind and trying to grope me or who was walking from the front and trying to bump into me. I was now avoiding them with the ease of a maestro conducting a concert. I was also cutting my path through the masses of people and cows and dogs without any effort. While before I had been muttering polite excuse me's and going unheard, I was now being given way without having to say anything. It was as if, earlier the people on the streets had ignored me, knowing I am a stranger without the slightest notion of how to make my way through the crowd and now the same people were suddenly aware that I was one of them and hence not to be messed with.

Bombay streets can be particularly frustrating for a non-bombayite to walk on. They are full of people in a perpetual hurry even if they are only taking their habitual morning/evening walks. Nobody ever saunters or walks slowly. If you do dare exhibit such daredevilry... you also need to be prepared for the curses and angry mutters that will come in from all sides and at times even rude pushes to get you out of the way. Here people don't walk like that even in parks... everywhere, everytime, everybody is always in a hurry... to get somewhere, to accomplish something.... even if it is a peaceful morning walk. And if you are a Bombayite... you have been groomed by the city to be 'like this only'... you don't know what a slow, leisurely walk means, you don't know the meaning of the word 'slow', you don't have the time or the ability to understand it. You are always in a hurry... to catch the 9:05 fast, to get the bus to Seepz, to get to office before it is 9:00 to get the 6:35 fast back home, to get home in time to pick up the kids or to watch your favorite serial or even to just be home... you are always rushing towards every moment, hurriedly, headlong, ceaselessly.

And this attitude I took with me (as if I had a choice or knew any better) when I took up my 1st job in the Infosys development centre at Mangalore. Now Mangalore is a sleepy little town in the south of India. It is beautiful, green and unhurried. Life there goes on at a pace a lot slower than in Bombay. People sit around on their huge verandahs drinking their morning cuppa coffee or tea and reading the newspaper or gossiping with neighbours over the low wall separating their house from their neighbour's. After dinner or on weekends I would go for long walks with my friends. There too I would keep darkly muttering at people walking ahead. They were always too slow for me. I would even yell at times... 'If you want to walk so slowly, why can't you go to a park. You are blocking the way by ambling around like that.' My friends would slink far away from me and look around guiltily. They would later laugh at me and remind me that we were only taking a walk and not in a hurry. I would look indignantly and in disbelief that they seem to think that the whole incident was my fault.

Slowly the place's charm rubbed onto me. I found myself walking slower, behaving patiently when the person being served ahead of me at the chemist's had a 20 minute long small talk with the chemist discussing mutual cousins thrice removed or the weather we experienced last week! From yelling at them to hurry up, to simply fidgeting and stomping to then even listening in attentively, my transformation was complete on the day I confidently butted in and added my two paisa worth! I was horrified... had I been non-Bombay-ized!?! Sis laughs at me and tells me how I have been ruralized and now am a gaon ki ladki... no longer the urban smart cookie... no longer the in-your-face Bombayite. But I disagree... I think I have mastered the art of playing both roles with aplomb. I can now, when in Rome do as the Romans do, I no longer wear my Bombayite attitude on my sleeve or shake it like a fist under someone else's nose. Yet everytime I go back to Bombay, I don the bindaas-ness of Bombay and it becomes me, even comforts me like an old pair of clothes which have been worn so many times and for so long that they feel like second skin. I now pat myself on my back for having achieved this selective behavior. I can hum and saunter luxuriously, stop to chat with an acquaintance, sit at my window and watch people pass by and not feel guilty or uncomfortable. At the same time I can walk confidently in a rude busy mob of thousands, listening to my MP3 player, nodding at an acquaintance without stopping or slowing down and not feel lost or threatened or hampered in the crowd.

I wear my many hats with suaveness and confidence. I am a globalized, ruralized Bombayite... and there are many like me. We don't look lost or out of our element when taken out of Bombay and put in any other place. We borrow our attitude from that place and roll up our sleeves or let our hair down as the place dictates. We are at home anywhere and everywhere and yet count on Bombay as home.

Maelstrom

2005-08-16T11:56:00.000+08:00

Everydayness
routine moments
streaming in,
peeking at the windows,
crowding at the doors,
rushing in
one,
then two,
then ten,
and hundreds,
uncountable,
insurmountable.
Rushing in.
Nudging, elbowing, grabbing...
pushing, pushing, heaving.
Stony faces,
expressionless,
eyeless,
Closing in,
overwhelming me...
by the thousands,
by the millions.
Clawing, pawing,
kicking, picking.
Taking over
as I struggle
and as I give up.
Moving in...
closer,
closer still,
breathing my air,
wiping my thoughts,
eating my mind,
shredding my soul,
slashing out my eyes...
until finally,
I cower,
I accept,
I submit.
Then emerge...
now one of them
as if I always was
just another
ordinary
commonplace
non-entity.

The Amway Brigade

2005-08-15T20:02:00.000+08:00

I got my millionth letter from Poetry.Com today in response to one measly poem I had posted there a few months back. A few weeks after posting the poem I got this mail from them, informing me that it has been selected as a semi-finalist in their monthly poetry contest and stands to win a 1000 USD!!! I was of course beside myself with joy. Fast on its heels came another mail requesting permission to publish my brilliant poem, which of course I readily gave with a few hundred kilos of blessings and thank-yous as well. Now my joy would have filled up the Atlantic Ocean! But there was a small hitch here… they wanted me to pay them 50 bucks to own one of these books with my priceless poem in it. Here my legendary miserliness saved the day. ‘Hmmm…’, said I… “I thought you made money if somebody published something your wrote… here not only am I not making a single paisa but also I will need to pay a whole lot to just buy one of these books, fishy… very fishy!”. Well… another mail… and this time raving about a soon to be held poetry convention where my work has been chosen to be presented before many poet laureates. Alongwith another figure… this time some 200 bucks!! Now I was beginning to smell the whole fish market in this story. It wouldn’t have taken Her Majesty’s 007 to solve this puzzle… they really didn’t give a damn about how good/bad my poem was. Poof… that was me deflating back to normal size. Someone then told me that she had posted ‘Mary had a little lamb’ and got the same gushing response to it. Oh well… and since then have received dozens of mails from the website regarding the convention including as many enticing details as possible. Oh… and the most hilarious of all being the instruction to bring an extra suitcase along to carry the heavy silver trophy/platter I will be awarded at the convention. Today I guess, those dolts finally gave up on me biting the bait and paying up to make it to their precious convention but then you got to give it to them… they are inspiringly, scarily persistent… as a final effort they have written that since regrettably I can’t make it to the convention, I can still pay to have my poem presented and also to have my gifts shipped to me. Ha dude… you are barking up the wrong tree this time!!

(Looking smug and one-up here, since I am usually one of those that buy something from those sad looking salespersons coz I am too nice to turn them away). Ah a scary thought… what if this website had someone to do personal sales… something akin to Amway. And while we are at it… Amway salespeople are like ‘Gabbar Singh’. If you are familiar with Hindi movies, specifically Sholay, there is this famous scene where Gabbar boasts of his notoriety by telling his fellow dacoits, how in faraway villages mothers scare their kids by telling them… ‘Go to sleep child, else Gabbar will come and get you’. If I am behaving badly and you want me to sober up, all you have to do is threaten me…’ Behave yourself Anu, else an Amway salesperson will come get you’.

Most people I know have a dozens of Amway horror stories to tell and it is indeed sad, because most of these people have been relentlessly hunted and pursued by friends, colleagues, relatives and neighbours...until they have been cornered, nailed and converted over. I have personally seen friends turn into social pariahs in their pursuit to make that extra buck. The last time I was baited was in my last place of work. I was new to the place and eager to make friends... a colleague walked upto me, introduced himself and indulged in some small talk. He told me how his wife likes to meet new people and how I seemed so much her type and how we would hit it off so well. He asked me for my contact number, I gave him my phone number and promptly forgot about it. But that evening, while I was still at work, his wife called me up, and asked me if I were busy. "Well, hmmm, I am but if it is something urgent and won't take up too much time we can talk now', I said, puzzled and taken aback. Vrooom..... blah-blah-yak-yak... off she started on how she has this wonderful business proposition for me and how I would make millions. I had no idea what had just hit me. "Well I am new to Singapore and still settling in here... Can we talk some time later when I have found my feet in this place". "Oh", she says (in the tone of one who has just been tossed into a bucket of cold water but is still hopeful), "When can we talk then, shall I call you up tomorrow?”. "No, I meant a few months... maybe I could call you up in around 2-3 months". Before you could say Robinson Crusoe, this lady had hung up, but not before she had dealt her parting shot... "Please don't mention this discussion to my husband when he is in the office, he doesn't like to talk business in office." 'Neither do I lady'... but I was left saying this to myself. She had meanwhile hung up. Now fast forward to 2 months later, Sunday morning and I am still sleeping the sleep of the dead... A phone rings. I curse and pick it up. Who do you think could have called... yep!! That unputdownable lady from Amway. (Do they ever give up!!?) But by this time, I had developed a weapon to counter their thick skull and skin... 'Nope I AM NOT INTERESTED' said I... firmly and angrily. That was the end of that. (hopefully)

Anna of Sepia Mutiny has recently posted her experiences with the (in)famous Amway sales force under the title The only time I'm not "from India" . "What about you? Have you enjoyed the fervent courtship of an Amway-ite?", she asks. Read the whole post... it comes replete with some more brilliant ways to shake off the Amway salesperson.

Culture Beat

2005-08-10T22:02:00.000+08:00

Just trying to get a quick list of upcoming events this August in S'pore, which I would like to attend:
1) Catch a show of Betrayal --> Presented by Singapore Repertory Theatre. Stars Shabana Azmi, Peter Friedman, Simon Jones. Playing from 18th August onwards.
2) Go to WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) --> 26th - 28th August
3) Attend the Singapore Writer's Festival --> 26th Aug - 4th Sep
4) Dr L Subramaniam's concert at Esplanade (bought tickets to this one already) --> 21st August
Let me know if I have missed any other event here, barring Jagjit Singh's concert at Esplanade on 11th Aug.

(Pssst: Also... Divya, Aparna and I are trying to put together a readmeet. If interested, let me know. Watch this space for more details on the meet.)

Cosa Nostrum

2005-08-08T15:42:00.000+08:00

Met up with a Aparna and Divya today over lunch and came back all smiles and beaming!

Coming from a girls only high school, strangely, I was not blessed with the knack of getting along with others of the same sex. Instead I ended up rubbing most the wrong way. But that changed when I had to share a house with 5 other girls!! (yes, I am not exaggerating... we stayed 6 to a house once!) And that taught me to appreciate the company of other women. Today I can deal with all types and yet maintain a fairly favorable relationship with the worst types as well... those who judge you based on how you talk, what you wear and how often you bat your eyelashes and those who profess an undying friendship to you but can't wait till you turn your back to stick that lovely knife in it.

And what is more, I crave for the company of other kindred women... women bound to me not by blood but by that rare and amazing tie of female friendship! It IS the best thing that can happen to one... to hook up with other like-minded women. You meet them over long lunches, short rushed coffee breaks, crazy shopping sprees or catch a movie together and you come back... with an extra spring in your step, a brighter twinkle in the eye and a wider smile. You have just spend the last few hours talking all at the same time, nodding vigorously while stuffing your mouth with pizza (or salad if you are on a diet, which most likely is the case) and at the same time managing to get your shopping done or watching the movie or whatever it is you set out to accomplish together. There is something therapeutic about it. You talk of cabbages and ships and earwax, you share whispered conversations which are so private you would blush if you were telling it elsewhere, you gossip loudly, bitch about the whole world and his wife, you laugh over inane jokes (and some very good ones which nobody else would get), you giggle (age is not a bar when it comes to this art), you rave over Orlando Bloom or Amitabh Bachchan or whoever is the latest, you review your latest book or movie, you finish each other's sentences, you catch up on each other's lives, glance at your watches a dozen times each time realising that you are late (so, so damn late) for whatever you were supposed to do next and even when you get up to leave you spend another hour just getting over with your goodbyes.

Many a times have I met up with or rung up a girlfriend because I was particulary down that day or too happy for words over something so silly only another girl would relate. I have heard countless tales and instances and quotes on how women are so catty and not to be trusted, how they can't keep a secret and how they betray their best pals... but not once have I encountered this in real life. I turn to them for strength and advice, I share my laughter with them and they happily share my tears with me. They are there at a single call, at the unholiest of hours to sit around and talk the bluest blues out of me and make me laugh, fill me with the assurance that the world still wraps itself around my little finger!

My set of girlfriends have stood by me through all times in my life, some I have grown up with, some I met later on at work or through common friends. The oldest among my circle is Thelsa, someone I have known since we were 10. We shared a bench in school, ate lunch together, had countless sleepovers, wore high heels for the 1st time together, learnt to wear makeup, had crushes on the same guys, bunked classes, learnt to dance, learnt tricks like yawning and looking around quickly to see which guy is yawning to spot the guys that were staring at us (creative huh?), told innumerable 'cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die' secrets to each other... She is such an integral part of my childhood and then my teenage years. When we pursued different career options (she went to medical school while I dabbled in engineering) for many days I was lost without the one permanent fixture in my whole experience of schooling. I remember how I sobbed and told my mom that now that we are not in the same school we will end up drifting apart. And though we didn't meet as regulary after that and now though we live on opposite ends of the globe, she still remains my best friend!

ZZZ...

2005-08-05T13:27:00.000+08:00

A s-l-o-w, lazy day
Z..ZZZing under my eyes
like an army of well-fed flies...

The raindrops hum away,
from the hazy grey sky -
a gentle drumbeat of lullaby.

Sleep my darling, sleep sweet...
whispers this lovely, lazy day
and obediently I nod away

Right in the view of my boss,
in the afternoon status update meet!!

Home Sweet...

2005-08-03T13:49:00.000+08:00

Going home after being away for such long intervals is like taking a pilgrimage. And I felt it more acutely this time, since sis will soon be leaving for Florida, following which parents will move to Kerala... which means I have no idea when the 5 of us (Parents, sis, AG and I) will spend time together again or when I will visit Bombay next.

Everything seemed so much more important and of so much more consequence. Every meal we ate together, moments we spent talking away late into the night, time we spent teasing each other... everything seemed to be special... even those yelling matches and cold wars with sis and mom!

And past few days since I have gotten back... have been difficult. I keep thinking of home and of the people who make up home. (Sa Re Ga Ma commented the other day... "home is so beautiful a word!" and one couldn't agree more). Isn't it is such a lovely word!! Isn't it just the loveliest word ever! HOME!! Makes one feel happy and at peace. Makes one feel loved and wanted and cherished and safe.

Home was such a great place to grow up in... sis and I shared a room... a bunk bed, one wall lined with my books, the others covered with posters of whoever is the latest craze... John Lennon, Marc Robinson, Salman Khan (eeewww!! see how honest I am... am willing to admit I liked the creep!). I had even stuck a poster with rules applicable to 'all ye who enter' on the door. The room is all changed... now that sis is the sole occupant and her idea of a tastefully done room is classier and less juvenile than mine.

The dining table was the family den... we all met there... to share our stories over dinner. Mornings... mum and dad would sit at the table sipping their cuppa coffee and the birds sitting on the birdfeed at the window, chattering and chirping noisily. Dad would read the English newspaper and mom, the Malayalam one. Suprabhatam playing in the background. Sis and me would walk around sleepily trying our best to get late and bunk school. Ah! yes... how can I forget... the phones would be ringing incessantly and shrilly.

Then there was the kitchen... I would spend a lot of time there just following mum around, all the while yak-yakking... telling her how Thels' and I got into trouble at school or how Ms.Goody-two-shoes got a comedown in class or how Teacher-miss-know-it-all slipped up... intermittently interrupting myself to dip my hand into whatever mum happened to be cooking/cutting/frying at that moment and pop it into my mouth.

I was such a pain to bring up... forever getting into trouble, bullying all the other kids, beating them up, getting beaten up too and amidst all this continuously generating fresh ideas to create more trouble. Every other day some kid's mom would end up at our doorstep with an angry complaint on how I punched her darling son. I used to believe that if you dig somewhere, anywhere for long enough then you would hit upon buried treasure (thanks to 'Treasure Island'!). So I would bully all the kids to dig at a spot for days on end until one of them complained or I gave up on the place and found another one with more promise. My first plane ride was a disappointment... I had been believing all along that the clouds are made of solid material and fairy folks lived in castles built on the clouds... imagine my sorrow at realising that the clouds are but whiffs of cottony white stuff and there are no castles on them! :(

Anyways... I digress as usual.

I started this post because I was feeling terribly, dark bluishly, almost blackishly homesick... and I guess this is one thing I can never grow out of. I can never stop missing home and sis and mum and dad. All the hour long phone conversations in the world are not going to alleviate it.

But my memories of home are also my haven. There are memories of random incidents, even split second shots of mom and dad and sis which my brain had snapped up and put away to be brought up time and again... their smiles, their eyes, their animated gestures while driving home some point, angry frowns, so many... so many clips! Everytime I am distressed, I close my eyes and bring up my favorite memory of home... us sitting at the dinner table and chatting away, narrating the day's events to each other, arguing over something, pulling each other's leg, laughing away to glory. And soon I feel the blues melt away, my distress fades and a warm, happy feeling takes over... the realization that no matter how far I go and no matter how long I'm away, no matter what I do and whether I succeed or fail... there is a place where I can always go back to and know I will be welcomed, loved and taken care of... HOME!

Salaam Bombay!

2005-08-02T11:29:00.000+08:00

Got back to work after my week in Bombay and people looked up at me as if I have just risen from the dead! Well... almost actually. The flight home was nothing short of a roller-coaster ride at Disneyland. I think I might have developed a severe case of phobia towards flying. The whole duration of the flight I kept praying and striking bargains with my God. After that ordeal, I am inclined to agree that I have indeed come back from the dead!

I had been looking forward to my 8 days of relaxation in Bombay and what I got was 8 days of tumult... first there was the news of the Hero Honda workers being lathi-charged leaving hundreds of workers injured, followed by THE RAINS, close on its heels came the fire at Bombay High and the landslides, the next day it was the rumor about the tsunami bringing the stampede in its wake, the next day it was the Air India airplane skid at the airport...

Coming from the safe and rather uneventful (praise the Lord for that!) city of Singapore where a person falling off his bicycle makes it to the national newspaper and the NKF scandal was the most exciting thing that has happened in more than half a year... this constant barrage of news was an obvious overdose.

The rains did wash out all my plans, though the upside was I spent a lot of time at home, rather than rushing around shopping, watching all the movies and trying out all the latest eateries in town! And well, what can one say about the rains... 94.4 cms of rain in a day (beats Cherrapunji's record of 83.6 cms)!! Everybody I knew had a story or two to narrate of how he or she was stuck in the rain, on the bandra kurla flyover or the saki naka road for 50 years with no food or water or how their house was floating on a thousand feet of water which had accummulated in the backyard. My last glimpse of Bombay from the airplane was an ocean of water and Noah's ark floating by.

Anyways compared to all the horrendous and heroic stories I have sat through, my own stuck-in-the-bombay-floods story is very bland. The rains started quite tamely, but were soon raging... though we all thought it was just another Mumbai rainy day. So in high spirits and with one-liners on how one must keep one's adventurous spirit alive and how it is sooo romantic and such fun to go out in the rain, sis and AG and I dragged mom and dad to accompany us to the nearby mall. Now this mall is just a 15 minutes drive from home, but it took us an hour and by the time we reached there, we had seen enough destruction to convince us this was no normal rainy day, something big was afoot and we need to head home pronto. Getting back home was something which needed the 5 of us to pray collectively and fervently, invoking all the gods we knew and listing out to them all the good deeds we had ever done. Almost 4-5 hours after we left, we got back home, walked to the lift in knee deep water, saw that the lift was drowning and left it there to climb the stairs and get home. No electricity (this is a rarity in our area in Bombay) and the phone's landline connection was dead! Spent the next 3-4 hours calling up everyone we knew to find out their whereabouts and playing Russian Rummy (this is my favorite card game after Bluff).

Mercifully it was cool enough to sleep without the fan or the A/c and the rains had wiped out all mosquitoes too alongwith thousands of cows, buffaloes, sheep and goat. The building grounds by then were 5 feet deep in water and only the tops of the cars were peeking out. Somewhere at 3:00 in the morning we got up to find our noses assailed by the smell of petrol... to our fright, we realised that the petrol tanks of the cars parked below had leaked!! The water by now had entered the houses of the people on the ground floor and all it would take was a single spark for one of the cars to blow up in true bollywood-ishtyle. As if that was not enough one of the cars started and for the next few hours we were treated to the rather silly roars of a car grumbling by itself, which it then topped with the bleating of its horn!!

The next morning the water drained away and life around our home slowly got back to normal... electricity and water supply were restored and phones sprung back to life. But the following 4 days, news kept pouring in about the rains and the massive destruction they had perpetrated. Amidst all that heartrending news and stories of misery and helplessness, there were scores of heartwarming tales of good samaritans who went out of their way (some risking their own lives) to help their fellow Bombayites. Time and again Bombay has displayed her resilience and her indomitable spirit and in every calamity her large-heartedness has shone through. Every time bad news strikes, Bombay has pulled through with an undying determination and an uncommon unity. All around and daily... people stop to help, do their bit. You see evidence of it when you travel by the crowded local trains... hands stretch out to pull you in as you run to catch the train and then someone else holds you fast as you hang on at the door for dear life. The same spirit pulls the city through dark times and difficult days. Truly... the city is a survivor and a fighter. Here roads are not paved in gold but in her bosom Bombay harbors a heart of gold! Salaam Bombay!!

Chalo Bombay!

2005-07-21T14:32:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow I leave for Bombay for a whole week!! Yipppeeeeeee!!!

Past few nights in preparation of the trip, my mind has been churning out dreams of home. Every night I dream of home, mom, dad and sis. Every morning I wake up with the taste of homemade food on my tongue and the aroma of the sandalwood agarbatti. Throughout the day I keep getting reminders from a suddenly hyperactive corner in my brain about my impending trip. It is like small spurts of joyful balloons that keep getting released in my heart at regular intervals. I can't write eloquently enough on how much I miss home and my family in Bombay and the excitement of spending 8 days with them is, I guess, quite evident through the few lines I have written above.

Have emailed Sis a list of eats with an order (and dire threats in case she forgets), to print it and pin it on the fridge for mom to see. I want to eat:
1) Idli sambhar
2) Misal Pav
3) Parippu Payasam (A kheer made of jaggery and dal)
4) Suji Halwa
5) Sabudana Wada
6) Masala Dosa
7) Veggie Cutlet
8) Mango chutney (you have to eat my mom's version of it to believe it!!)
9) Pav Bhaji
10) Palak Paneer
11) Patharwada(this is a steamed dish made of Arabi leaves...something similar to the maharashtrian Aluwadi but spicier and not fried )
12) Avial... the list is endless and can't remember what else was in it!!

Anyways... also in preparation of the extra kg I will bring back around my waist, have already told my trainer at the gym to help me with extra workouts when I get back :))

Will try to blog from home but if I can't, remember... it is because I am too busy stuffing myself !!

The fate of the girl child...

2005-07-20T13:43:00.000+08:00

Just read this on Midday... 'Watchman finds baby girl in bag'

A well-dressed woman, presumably from an affluent family, dumped a baby girl, hardly a few days old on the road... ON THE ROAD!! Not at the door of an orphanage, not at the steps of a temple, not at any place where the baby could have the slightest prayer of survival but on the road where its delicate pint sized body would get crushed between the giant wheels of a truck or a speeding car. What kind of human being would do this despicable thing. It is clearly a case of intent to murder. But nobody has caught a glimpse of her, good enough to be able to identify her and so... another criminal walks scot-free.

Did she dump the kid because it was a girl... not something unheard of in a country with one of the highest numbers of female infanticide/foeticide cases? Or did she abandon the child because it was born out of wedlock... another common excuse in India to dump babies.

Well whatever the reason be, one can't help but be deeply disturbed by this beastly and murderous act and that too when the victim concerned is a defenceless child, just a few days old!! Are we as a society not responsible for this act as well?

Another thing that immediately sprung to my mind on reading this horrifying article was the tragic irony, that in our society one finds people like Sumanth (read this post and the comments on this post) who fight hard to change the section 498A, which is used to bring to book the perpetrators of atrocities against daughter-in-laws, under the pretext that the section is being misused. He seems to have no idea that for every false case there are hundreds of true ones and for every true case there are tens which go unreported. And the man seems to be obsessed with changing the one section which provides some hope of protection to these battered women!! One doesn't see him pleading the case of the tortured, murdered, burnt, raped, battered women/girl child. Well his battles are for him to pick. Sure, go ahead and fight against the misuse of the law but don't brush aside the real horror which made it necessary for that law to be brought into existence! What really gets my goat here, is that he has the 'good sense' to trivialize all the violence against women by stating a few errant cases of misuse. Ironical??... THAT is an understatement!

For the love of the road.

2005-07-20T10:40:00.000+08:00

These pics on Charu's Flickr album blew me away... I spent precious productive time gazing at them, drowning in a multitude of feelings. But then I have always loved roads... When I was in UK, I had once sent home a package of snaps I had taken... all of them with a tag written behind... commenting on who was in the snap, where it was taken, when it was taken or something interesting or funny. Among them there were numerous snaps which featured just roads... country roads, roads lined with heavily pregnant apple trees in Berkshire, cobbled pavements at Eton, Oxford street, the lighted up streets near Piccadilly, busy streets of Canary Wharf, Outside the Odeon at Leicester Square, On the street outside 22B Baker street, small tree lined paths by the Thames, the village road in Hurst, the willow lined riverside road at Henley-on-Thames...

I am not much of a photographer... if you pose for me with your best makeup and brightest smile, rest assured the snap will feature only a body at an odd angle with the head cut off at the neck or worse the fruitseller behind you and there would be just your scarf in the left corner betraying your existence :) Roads though are easy to photograph... they are too big to be accidentally excluded and they don't complain if I make them look bad, they don't even ask for a second go since the first time they 'blinked at the flash'.

Anyways I am digressing and to bring us back on track... I was saying how I love roads. Each of them speaks to me in a different way, awaken in me a different set of emotions.

A village mud path lined with endless green paddy fields and peppered with little thatched roof mud huts always reminds me of the real India... not the cities where people are crushed like sardines in little houses and smaller train compartments. Village roads or those set amidst green fields or orchards always transport me back to my childhood summer vacations spent in my native place in Kerala. And immediately I feel happier, lighter and so much younger. I want to go explore them wearing old clothes torn on fences and stained by jamuns and mangoes.
Winding roads going up mountains surrounded by endless views of faraway horizons and deep valleys with a river in the groove and a tiny village in the distance... these are my favorite types... they fill me with a sense of freedom and with giddy laughter and abandonment. They make me want to run down the green slopes soaked with dew or rain, barefoot with my arms outstretched and the wind through my hair... laughing and whooping all the way.
Roads along beaches, streams or rivers call me to come sit on the bare earth and let my feet be tickled by the gentle ripples of water as I watch the sunset, read a book or talk in whispers to a dear friend or loved one and if nobody is around, even to myself. And then watch in quiet awe as the night falls gently and the sky is bedecked with countless stars.
Cobbled paths, remnants of a medieval age lined with the stone houses of that era or roads set amidst historic grandeur, lined with reminders of a past gone by... these delight me... fill me with a sense of history and culture, draw out a deep respect and a longing yearning to walk down those paths, drinking in the sights and trying to imagine the life they have witnessed over all these years.
Long roads... with no end in sight, stretched out into the distance... these awaken in me a sense of adventure, they beckon me to drive along, stop at quaint shanties for hot tea and cold samosas, take frequent breaks at villages so small you would miss them if you blink... and talk to their inhabitants, buy fresh vegetables and fruits from them and take home lasting memories of their vivid smiles, eloquent eyes and simple lifestyles.
The city roads sparkling with streetlights, neon glow of the hoardings, lights twinkling at thousands of windows of all the surrounding skyscrapers, headlights from hundreds of cars whizzing by... all these drowning out the moon and the stars... roads filled with busy activity... these too, I love. I love cities, having been born and brought up in Bombay and having lived in cities for most of my life. I love the bustle of the cities, the sense of purpose, the instant sense of belonging I feel in the strangest of them. I like to stand at a junction of these busy roads and soak up the life they have to offer. I feel the pride swelling up in my heart... at the collective achievements of humanity, which make the cities possible. As I stand amidst all that, I know that anything is within reach and the loftiest of ambitions are achievable. These roads, more than any other, make me feel young, so alive and invincible.

Too nice to be true?

2005-07-18T17:18:00.000+08:00

Ah... errr... have a confession to make... am hooked to "Fame Gurukul"... that Talent contest, which I had panned in my post here. But then, I still hate it. The whole reality show trend irritates and disgusts me. So what makes me keep coming back for more, at least where this particular show is concerned?

I love the enthusiasm and healthy competition the kids display in it. I love their camaraderie and their friendships. They are all competing on a very big and life-changing stage. The one who wins will be shown a shortcut to success and fame... and yes lots of moolah too! But yet, there are no dirty games afoot, no treading on each other to reach the top. On the contrary they sincerely cheer, motivate and help each other. The display of such clean competition and such sincere friendships is a welcome break from the dirty politics encouraged by other shows like "The Bachelor" or "The Survivor" or "The Apprentice". Maybe those shows teach a lesson too and maybe they portray the real world, and I am sure they have their own devoted defenders.

But really, after a dose of the real world everyday from 9 to 6, it is nice to curl up and watch these talented young people, good naturedly competing, heartily wishing each other their best and crying even when they go through to the next round because one of their friends was eliminated! It is heartwarming to see these youngsters' naivete and large-heartedness. I wonder whether it will stay untouched after their foray into the dog-eat-dog world of Bollywood... I pray it does. But meanwhile it is, as I said, earlier a lovely way to end my day.

Though at times I wonder whether these displays of friendships and clean competition untouched by pettiness and insidiousness is the real thing or just a pretty show packaged and presented as reality, cleverly designed to tug at our heartstrings!

My latest addiction

2005-07-14T16:00:00.000+08:00

Have you been wondering why I haven't been blogging as regularly as I usually do?
Herez why... Caferati.

Found this network through somebody's blog and joined up on Ryze to be able to post on the network's message board. Here is my profile on ryze. Check out my postings on Caferati. I post there almost everyday. It is a great place to go to for reviews on your prose/poetry and also to read the writings of fellow writers.

Cool Place and Cool People. Come and see for yourself!

Haiku

2005-07-12T15:12:00.000+08:00

My first attempt at Haiku:

(For those who have no clue what Haiku is or want to know more, read this, this and this.)

Tight coils of sleep
winding around my brain
a grey rainy day.

L'il playful shadows
spinning 'round n 'round a tail
my puppy Brutie.

Fat sooty shadow
a shrieking whistle calling
the tea is ready!

A whip cracks sharply
Smoke rising from treetops -
struck by lightning!

Super Size India

2005-07-07T09:32:00.000+08:00

Yesterday for lunch, SK drove us to the West Coast Mc Donald's outlet and I ate a Mc Chicken after ages. AG and I, both, hate the Mc Donald's food. We think it tastes like hay and the mountains of calories in everything they offer is a major deterrent. So as AG says... "As far as I can see, eating at Mc Donald's only has a downside."

Over the past few years, America seems to have been in the throes of an obesity epidemic which according to experts is worsening. But the good news is that the people are awakening to the fact and slowly there is a movement taking root which is urging people to eat and live healthy.

My Singaporean colleagues though, seem to have no qualms about eating a thousand empty calories at a sitting. Blessed with genes, I could kill for, they don't put on easily and can plough through a basket of goodies from the local bakery without wasting a single thought to the 'C' word (calories).

At lunch, all of them seemed to be regulars at Mc Donald's. Many of them breakfast at Mc Dee's regularly. YW even takes his 2 year old daughter to Mc Donald's for lunch every Saturday! And according to him, she loves it there! Well that's what Happy Meals are for. But seriously... how good is it for her? And are you not hooking her onto a terribly unhealthy habit at so young an age. I am not being neurotic here. An occasional meal of chicken rice or fried noodles or the Quarter Pounder is hardly what constitutes the definition of unhealthy. But making a habit of it... now that is taking it too far. And yet you see dozens of Singaporean school children spending hours in the local Mc Dee's or Burger King outlets... catching up on their schoolwork, chatting, giggling, sms-ing and all the while chomping down on heaps of food and gallons of coke!

SK wanted to know whether we have many outlets of Mc Dee's back home in India. "There are quite a few these days, but not as many as in Singapore" I informed him. Set me thinking... his question... Indians really don't seem to be going to the Mc Dee's as much as the rest of the world does. We still prefer our economical Lunch homes and Sukh Sagars over the phoren fast food outlets. And then above all this, is the ghar ka khana, which all of us still swear by; unlike a huge percentage of the world which has conveniently forgotten how to cook! The cool quotient, though, is definitely missing when it comes to the indigenous food outlets, and more and more people seem to be converting over. The day is not very far away, when our kids will be weaned on Coke and a Mc Dee's burger will be their first bite of solid food. Do we need a Super Size Me or a lawsuit storm to wake us up.

Also, isn't it time we learnt that the ghee and dalda and sugar we consume in such heapfuls are not helping either. This high fat food might have been okay, even ideal, for our hard working ancestors but for a generation which spends most of the day sitting around, this kind of food is hardly healthy... far from it actually! Indians, typically have higher body fat, according to the experts, making us especially vulnerable to obesity and its related health problems like diabetes and heart disease. And with the economy boom powered fast food industry growing like a juggernaut, coupled with the increasingly sedentary lifestyles we tend to lead... India is at a great risk of being hit by a major obesity epidemic... the starting signs of which are already visible. Nationwide, 31 percent of urban Indians are either obese or overweight. The mean age of 45 for Indian heart attack victims is 10 years younger than for Americans. More than half the females and a third of the male population from the affluent class is currently overweight. And naturally, we seem to be passing this onto our kids as well. A new study indicated that one out of 15 school going kids in the high income group is obese.

Where weight is only a sign of affluence and the big bellied still command respect in some areas... it is not surprising that India is blissfully unaware of the danger alarms going off throughout her. There are among us, many indulgent parents who, when pointed out that their child is overweight, smile proudly and answer... " Arre Nahin Jee... He is not fat, he is just a healthy baby... Lagna chahiye na ki khaate peete ghar ka hai? ". Touché.

'Til death do us part

2005-07-06T14:08:00.000+08:00

Would you come if I call...

Would you walk with me
into the distance,
where no one calls...

Where faraway horizons
meet endless grasslands
and no footstep falls...

On an old country road
trampled grass underfoot
and no end in sight...

No life to distract us
except green and cold wind
great swathes of light...

Would you walk a road
you wouldn't tread alone
if I call would you go...

Where time stands still
and silence goes by
on a hushed tiptoe...

As sky, earth and road
For our only witnesses
would you then take me...

Would you bind me to you
with fathomless love
and thus would you free me...

Would you touch me, my soul
my breath, my sight
every sigh I heave...

Then would you stay with me
till death's minions call
put us in a box and leave.

Cry Baby...

2005-07-05T13:35:00.001+08:00

A childhood of banned television, deprived of soaps and serials, has been, I now realise, a blessing a disguise. Thanks Dad. I am not addicted to any serials on the idiot box. I never in the least mind missing episodes of any soap operas or reality shows or any of those serialized comedies etc that are regular fare for the couch potato generation.

But of late AG and I watched a couple of the Fame Gurukul sessions. And since we had already watched the 1st two, we sat ourselves down and put ourselves through another one yesterday... that thankfully cured us!

Yesterday's session saw the 12 candidates being introduced to the environs of the Gurukul they are to attend in the forthcoming weeks. And throughout, the obvious focus of the show's producers was to make those kids cry on national television. This show of tears, ask Oprah she will confirm, is the surest method to win over viewers and increase the number of eyeballs a show garners.

Ila Arun, yes she of the 'Choli ke Peeche' fame and she of the foot long bindis, is the Headmistress of the Gurukul. So there was the loud, untalented, bloated with self-importance Ms.Arun trying out her rather unpolished and irritating acting and drama skills on television. She spends most of her time on this show mouthing inanities and melodramatic dialogues of the kind... 'How can you ask me to choose among my own students, can you ask a mother to choose among her own kids... nahin na... then why are you asking me?' (Well, at least it made me roll on the floor with uncontrolled laughter...). Yesterday she spent the rest of her time on TV... trying to make those kids cry and the more they wailed or sobbed... the more smug she looked.

There were those talented young girls and boys with stars in their eyes and hopes of making it big, of becoming another Sonu Nigam or Sunidhi Chauhan and they were being grilled mercilessly by this 'ma-jaisi-guru' (Ggggod!!). There was this girl who had lost her father 5 years back and Ms.Arun wouldn't rest until she had the girl filmed as the tearful fatherless lamb. She kept persistently reminding her of her late father and then repulsively poking her with questions about how she 'feels' until the poor girl burst into tears (Oh the Horror!!) . The camera too lingered long on only those who wept before it. So I guess, by the end of the filming all those who were brave enough to not cry would have gotten the cue... if you don't cry, you don't get any limelight... and since this is as much a popularity show as it is a talent contest... baby you better get sobbing hard and putting some huge tears up for show!

Why I write...

2005-07-04T14:51:00.000+08:00

There are days when I write like one possessed, words, ideas come to me like leaping flames and I write like a raging fever. I slash, rewrite, read, re-read and all this time... words keep forming out of nowhere... it is as if it is not me who is writing but some fiery red-eyed, sleep-deprived Medusa and I pant and struggle to keep up. But I feel like a goddess on Mount Parnassus. I feel invincible and drunk in the wine of forever-ness and literary highdom.

And then there are those days when I cannot write... I sit for hours with a blank piece of paper, occasionally starting something which sounds good to me as I embark and then I realise it is only the corpse of an idea... swollen with my forced writing... it does not live like the other ideas did, does not breathe, dance in abandon, smile, entice, grieve... nothing. I give in to dramatics feeling these rituals might appease the Muses at whose altar I worship... I rub my eyes, beat my fists, pinch my forehead, pull my hair and yet nothing. I am engulfed in a wave of melancholy. I feel worthless. I feel all alone and screaming at the bottom of a huge pit. I wonder, why I suffer, nay, even gladly submit to such doomed sorrow.

Maybe because the joy of writing something which I know contains a spark in it makes me feel like the Almighty. Maybe because all that sorrow is nothing when compared with the joy, however short-lived and transitory it is. But also because I have fought this urge and lost and learnt that there is no escape. Also because, now, I don't want to escape it... I love the high that writing affords me. And I love the feeling of belonging that it grants me... into the hallowed company of fellow writers. The self-doubt and pre-writing agony, I know is common though each suffers alone and some more so than others... but out of that agony, at times (however rare those times are), one is able to produce a story, an essay, a poem, just a few lines, something, on reading which, in your heart you know, you have created something which breathes and lives. So what if such occasions are preceded by numerous others which are depressingly infertile.

And hence I write, in hope, everytime, that this time I will come up with yet another of those rare pieces which I can read and not tear apart in disgust, treasure even.

Why do you write?

I am like this wonly!

2005-07-01T12:16:00.000+08:00

Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some sort of climax is reached.
-- Robert Pirsig in 'Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance'.

And how well I relate to this! I hate it when people get judgmental about me, when they dislike me just because of the way I speak or the way I dress or the way I live. I love to shock such people. I enjoy their disapproval and rub in the fact that I don't give a sh*t and well... they can do nothing about it! Why should I behave in a certain manner, which is quite unlike me, just to win somebody's approval?!? Accept me as I am, I don't come in no gift packagings!

My Bed of Roses

2005-06-26T11:54:00.000+08:00

I give you the roses from my bed
and the laughter from my eyes.
To u i give my happiness
sweet pain and longing sighs

And you... i forgive
you, who, I can't forget.
I give you this too and that
To you, all I have, I give.

Go now....

As you leave... I love...
irrevocably, unchangeably
Forever....

And when an errant thorn pricks
as it most certainly will,
someday maybe, if not now
may you remember my roses
and your first love.

Wish I was... 'a-teen' again

2005-06-24T16:05:00.000+08:00

Ah! and then you come
traipsing la la 'long
on your two high notes
and yes, an uppity bow.

Eighteen and then some
that was oh so long,
have burned my boats
in my efforts to grow.

Trapped in my walls,
but then I don't care.
Though you'd have fought,
but I lied to you so.

These days nothing calls
or tears at my hair,
though you'd have not
been lying so low.

Well, but you're gone
and now i so miss
those days when you sought
star gold n' moonglow.

Eight years I've known
that something's amiss...
how I wish i'd not
wished for you to go!

Oh eighteen and then some
that was so... so long.
Have I burned my boats
in my efforts to grow?

The Law is blind and incredibly dumb!

2005-06-22T15:52:00.000+08:00

Have been despairing over how women marry the men who raped them. And can't understand why the law does not punish the rapists no matter what? Come on, the crime of having raped a women doesn't nullify if you then marry her. The rape should not be allowed to go unpunished and having to marry your rapist is hardly what anyone in their sane mind could call justice.

This is such a dangerously casual attitude that the courts are increasingly displaying and that too towards a crime as heinous as rape. It seems like an encouragement to rape a woman... after all what could be the worst that could happen... you might have to marry her!!! Do the courts expect the couple to then live happily ever after? Don't they realise what hell they are pushing the poor victim into... having to live as the wife of her rapist... can't imagine a greater indignation. What kind of law punishes the victim?

Anyways after endless news clips of rape victims marrying the rapists this news item is a welcome change. Imrana seems to be one gutsy lady. I wish her luck and persistence. The stand she has taken demands a lot of courage from her and also a lot of determination. But sadly most other women in India seem to be devoid of the circumstances which allow such a courageous decision. Our wise society would prononce them insane if they didn't joyously jump at the chance to marry their rapist and save their and their family's 'honor'.

But wait there is hope, though only if you are a foreigner raped on Indian soil... here is why! Am quite happy about the speed in which the legal system pronounced justice but Hey... don't you think Indian women deserve the same? Now look at this article... 10 years is how long the girl has waited simply for her case to come to court and you know what... yep... she is still waiting!! Meanwhile she and her family are being punished and threatened every day for the past 10 years.

And these village panchayats don't seem to be such a good idea after all, with their moronic rulings... some of them going way beyond beastly. Take a look at this and this and this and this. There are endless cases of the panchayats ordering woman to be humiliated/raped/paraded naked and all such bizarre rulings which ridicule any law process India has.

When are we going to stop being the origin of such unbelievable news items?!?

While we are at it... did you know that according to section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, "sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, not being under 15 years of age, is not rape."... and methought that legal marriageable age in India was 18 for the girl. So much for the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, which prescribes the minimum age of 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys for contracting marriage. And Indian law makes no provisions to protect a woman from marital rape, in fact, Indian rape legislation (Penal Code 375) specifically exempts marital rape. So much for Indian legal system as well then! Now you can rape a woman, then marry her to escape the law and after marriage you can rape her everyday... and this time the rape is legally acceptable!

And a hero dies in you...

2005-06-21T15:04:00.000+08:00

When I was a kid my favorite heroes were Amitabh Bachchan and Kapil Dev. And when I say heroes I don't mean the 'bollywoodized' version of the word but in a pure sense of the word hero (as in idol). And if I ask any of my cousins this, they would name a new set of names albeit coming from the same sections of society maybe... films and sports.

But our heroes are drug abusers, bribe takers, match fixers, mafia supporters in their real life and it is their reel life avatars which we seem to be taking to. And what if the line between the two avatars gets thinner and finally is effaced? Will we still look up to our heroes? Isn't there a real danger that the youngsters will imbibe the values of these recipients of their misplaced hero worship?

Are we a generation which lacks heroes and which has no true idea of heroism, then? Agreed, in our modern day context we can't identify with the heroes of yore maybe. But they could still teach us a lot more than our present day idols. We could still learn from our Subhash Chandra Boses, Bhagat Singhs and Shivajis. Instead, our pedestals seem to be occupied by chain smoking Sharukh Khans, drug abusing Fardeen Khans and gun toting Sanjay Dutts. We seem to think it is cool to mouth 'bhai' lingo. Well no harm there but I hope we also remember the real life don is not the Ajay Devgan of Company or the Aamir Khan of Rangeela, but a ruthless, heartless monster who makes his money and derives his respect from killing people, exploiting them, extorting, kidnapping and threatening.

Indeed we seem to be a generation which are devoid of true heroes. On one hand, the world seems to be spewing out poisoned versions instead and the youth seem to be enamoured by extremisms and senseless violence while on the other hand the true heroes are being ignored or worse still misunderstood and judged as having selfish motives. At times I feel maybe I have lost the ability to admire the goodness in people... I am too cycnical, too suspicious of their motives. Even my heroes are routinely put up in the courtroom and tried by my cynicism... guilty unless proven innocent!

Meanwhile what happened to true heroism? What happened to idealism? What happened to selfless, noble causes not colored by race, creed and religion? Are they being looked down upon and laughed at as impractical and unprofitable? But were they ever otherwise? Wasn't it always one individual against the system, who fought alone but never gave up simply because he believed and had the integrity to stick by it. And yet haven't mountains been moved and the impossible achieved... not once but time and again!

Amazing Antarctica

2005-06-17T09:54:00.000+08:00

Current Read: Antarctica on a Plate by Alexa Thompson

Overview: The author was a successful web designer at an investment bank in Sydney with a snazzy office and snazzier clothes. But then the princess got fed up of all the luxury surrounding her and gave it all up to be a cook in a camp at the Antarctic. This book describes the adventures she had there.

What I think of the book: Alexa has a great story to tell. It is spell-binding and compelling. But her narration style could be better though it is honest and easy flowing.

Current thought: Huge sigh! Wish I could be in her shoes. Antarctica sounds straight out of a fairy tale, an entirely different planet altogether. The landscape is mesmerising and evokes awe-inspiring emotions. The 24 hour summer sunlight, endless ice fields, yawning crevasses, forbidding snow mountain ranges... the blinding, endless white canvas... just reading it and imagining how it would look, is enough to hurt one's eyes and fill one's heart with the yearning to explore this intriguing, unpeopled, virgin land where each day survival is a miracle and time is immeasurable.

SIGH! Wish I could go to Antarctica, but the cost of Antarctic tourism makes it out of reach, unless one is spouting dollar bills. I don't think I can accomplish what Alexa did... I can't cook to save my life. But hey, maybe they need someone as a lowly, unpaid cleaner and helper. Hmmm... now there's an idea!!

Obituary to Jimmy

2005-06-15T10:19:00.000+08:00

Jimmy Roach... persistent nuisance and visitor from hell is no more. He was killed in a fierce battle between him and AG on Jun 09, 2005.

What started as a perfectly normal evening for me and for Jimmy too, I guess, ended up as the last evening in his short but fear-inspiring life. Jimmy Roach was a brave bug to the very end. He had lived his entire life in my kitchen and in the very same kitchen he met his sad end.

That evening I happened to come early from the gym, hoping to cook a big dinner. As I walked into the kitchen to get me some water, I saw him, not at his usual haunt in the cabinet but on the door. In his glossy black-brown suit, he looked creepier than ever. And there he sat mocking me, hoping to scare me witless... I obliged, yelled, tucked my tail between my legs and fled!

In my room I waited, thirsty and hungry and cursing. And then AG came home... my knight errant and brave warrior. Have never seen a more unwilling saviour though! But I have exceptional cajoling skills and off I send Sir Knight on his mission. Jimmy, was still around, unlike his usual cunning self... maybe lost in the thoughts of his beloved.

Pots clanged, broom struck the door, dust rose, Pans crashed against each other and then there was a lull. As the dust settled, one could see Jimmy sprawled on the floor. With a last wriggle, he died... poor soul!

Since the wake would most likely be attended by unsavory characters(read ants), the idea was dropped and Jimmy was given a fitting funeral with the dustpan.

Jimmy is survived by no one (hopefully).

Jimmy Roach
R.I.P.

Ek Aam Post

2005-06-13T16:48:00.000+08:00

At last found good Alphonso mangoes in Singapore. Last year all I could find were Pakistani and Thai mangoes. The Indian mangoes sold at Mustafa were not worth the effort I would put in, to lug them home!!

Mango... the absolute monarch among fruits. I love mangoes with the passion of a connoisseur. But then I descend from a line of great mango lovers. As a kid, every single summer vacation was spent in Kerala, in the company of a Grandfather who is a mango enthusiast and had planted several varieties of them in his orchard. Our morning walks were peppered with him pointing at various mango trees and rattling off their names... Neelam, Jehangir, Mundappa, Malgova,... their taste (sweet, bitter, very sweet...), uses(cooking, pickles, to be eaten ripe...) and so on. My Grandma would salt away prodigious amounts of small, raw mangoes in giant earthen pots (excellent for a five year old to play-act Aladdin and 40 thieves in!) and my mom makes the best mango based dishes in the whole world.

The yearly summer trips to Kerala were filled with episodes of heat boil breakouts due to the unchecked, unlimited consumption of mangoes. Every afternoon Sis and Kanchana akka and I would go tramping around the mango orchard, knife and a potent mixture of salt and red chilli powder in hand, in search of that perfect, half-ripe mango that would then be plucked, given a cursory wash in the nearby pond, cut up, dipped in the spicy mixture we had brought along and then eaten under the cool shade of the mango tree as we sat and argued or told long tales. My favorite was the humble Mundappa which is also the preferred choice for cooking mango dishes, pickling and salting away. There is also the Neelam which yields some of the sweetest mangoes but usually harbors beetles inside, so a mango that looks perfect from the outside is black on the inside. The Malgova or Jehangir are best eaten ripe. And then there are my mom's favorite, the red bottomed mangoes, their name escapes me but not the taste and the fun we used to have... first stealing them from the neighbour's courtyard and then pressing them in our hands till they were soft. We would then bite off the top and suck out the pulp... the golden juice would flow down our chins and hands onto our feet and clothes and our faces would be the picture of ultimate delight.

Every year, dad would order huge wooden crates filled with the divine Ratnagiri Hapus (Alphonso Mangoes). They would arrive littering our kitchen with hay and filling it up with the overpowering aroma so typical of a good Hapus. Sis and I would sit and dip our hands in the rustling hay to find the warm mangoes nestling in between. And for days to follow we would gorge ourselves on ripe mangoes and all kinds of mango dishes... mango milkshakes, aamras, aamrakhand... Throughout the day I would keep slipping into the kitchen to pick out a ripe Hapus, judging it by its wrinkled yellow skin. I would then pare off the skin and dig my teeth greedily into the succulent flesh to savour the indescribable taste of the Hapus. A trip to the fruit and vegetable market during mango season meant getting lost among yellow, fragrant mounds of all kinds of mangoes from all corners of India... Langda, Pairi, Totapuri, Banganapalli, Rajapuri, Dashehari, Chuasa...

After I left Bombay and my childhood home, there have been numerous difficult mornings, when I have woken up with the dull ache of homesickness in my heart and the taste of hot rice kanji (rice porridge) and salted mangoes on my tongue. I can still smell the pungent aroma of mango aviyal (coconut based preparation with myraid vegetables and mangoes) and distinctly remember the taste of mango chutney, the various mango pickles (mango thokku, kannimanga, simple home made mango pickles...), mango umman (which is a fiery hot mango dish my mom makes and which tastes heavenly with dosas) and uppumanga (salted raw mangoes). As I write this my mouth is filled with the sharp ache of longing and my mind is awash with precious childhood memories.

There really is nothing 'aam' about the mangoes... the most ordinary among them is capable of providing a royal treat!

Writer's Block

2005-06-10T15:29:00.000+08:00

Mediocrity
wri-g-g-ling
like a triumphant worm
in the throat of
my inspiration.

As you leave

2005-06-09T21:14:00.000+08:00

As you leave...

turn around
and look at me one last time
as I stand before you
and as I stand behind
innocence lost,
adulthood gained.

You desert me
teary faced child
looking grown up
feeling lost.

Don't go please... I won't grow
I want you still
though I can no longer cry
Wait mamma! and scream
or do what you say
to keep you.

Turn around and look
you might find the courage to stay,
you might lose the courage to leave,
but don't go.
Please.

Sunset Therapy

2005-06-08T13:36:00.000+08:00

There is a picture on my desk of a sunset over a river flowing at the edge of some woods.

And I look at it when I am upset or sad.

I love sunsets... the day melting in so many colors and the sky stained by the fiery sun in hues I have not seen outside nature and in contrasts I thought wouldn't look good together but suddenly I discover they do. And then the day dies... slowly, calmly, inevitably... it calms me down too. I let myself go... let my anger and frustration dissolve with the sun. It is a slow process but very cathartic and therapeutic.

Sunsets are glorious things... like a long letter from home. They fill me with happiness and hope. The streaks of color slowly fading into the night... I could melt into their liquid iridescence. Many an evening have I spent watching the sun slip into the sea and it has never failed to touch me. I love the calm feeling of an endless sea, an endless beach and endless sky... dwarfing my worries. The salty wind and cool sand, the returning birds and the insistent, gentle waves, the red sun drowning itself into the infinite sea and the huge castles of the nimbus clouds towering in the sky. I emerge from it lighter and smiling with a secret that I hold in my heart. I feel peacefully drowsy and unburdened. But I have confided in no one. Somewhere my soul has communed with the spirits of beauty and wisdom and has drawn from them the strength to let go. There had been a fist in my heart squeezing the happiness out of it and now that hand has loosened its grip. It is a caress now, that lulls me to smile and sigh. And somewhere my soul has found peace.

Attack of the Book Meme Virus

2005-06-07T16:15:00.000+08:00

This tag sneaked up on me via Neel's blog. Had no idea this meme exists but now that we have been introduced, it sounds like such a great idea. So here goes...

Number of books I own: Never counted but in view of the fact that have been collecting since I was five (or lesser) maybe somewhere between 1500 to 2000 (not counting the collection of Chandamamas, Tinkles, Champaks (Champak!! what was i thinking?!!) and Gokulams). Most of my collection is at home in Bombay adding to my mom's chores. And back here in Singapore, I currently have around 30-40 of them. But then I also own a library card which affords me access to the National Library of Singapore with its numerous branches and their excellent collections.

Last Book I bought: Now how do you go to a bookshop and buy just 1 book... and this impossibility is compounded if you go to a book fair as I did last weekend.
Had to be dragged home by AG, but managed to bring along:
* Mrs Dalloway: Have read it but never owned a copy. And some books, you simply have to own copies of. When it comes to Woolf, all her books are eminently ownable. She is to prose what Plath is to poetry... sensitive, brilliant, stunning, vivid, revolutionary... her writing makes you gasp and wonder.

* The Ambassadors
* The Awkward Age
Both by Henry James. Have read Daisy Miller but that was a long time ago. The Ambassadors, he considered his best work. And I was persuaded (not that I needed any!) to buy it because of this extract I read in Azar Nafisi's 'Reading Lolita in Teheran' (which btw is a real masterpiece and compellingly must-read).

* Antarctica on a Plate (She came, She saw, She burnt the toast)
-- by Alexa Thomson
Alexa gave up a successful career in web designing to go to Antarctica and cook! This book is a memoir of her adventures in the coldest place on earth.

* The Ripening Sun
-- by Patricia Atkinson
This is the story of another brave woman who gave up a steady job and life to go and live off her vineyards in France, of which by the way, she knew nothing to start with!!

The last 2 buys are inspired by the delight I got out of reading 'Extra Virgin: Among the olive groves of Liguria' by Annie Hawes. Like a lot of people I dream of being able to give up my cushy living of a software consultant and go backpacking or adventure seeking in some exotic lands. The glamour of such a life beckons me and I am still short on the courage it takes to chuck it all up and follow. But at least I can live these lives vicariously through the stories of these fellow women who found the courage that I lack.

Last Book I read:
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Was recommended to me by SM. Have always enjoyed Gladwell. His subjects are so original and his research so exhaustive. In addition he writes well. No gobbledygook which a layman (like me) would be hard put to understand. Blink is a book about the adaptive unconscious and what follows as a result of it... rapid cognition. It tries to explain those split second decisions that we make and how these decisions can be controlled and made more reliable. It debates against the school of thought which says that such snap decisions and judgements which are made, apparently without supporting information and data, are unreliable and can prove to be disastrous. Blink is thought provoking and forces one to sit up and take notice of those quick conclusions or decisions we make and then usually push aside since years of conditioning has taught us to 'Think twice before we leap'.

Also reading 'The Diamond as big as the Ritz' by F.Scott.Fitzgerald. It is a novelette which (quoting Fitzgerald)... 'was designed utterly for my own amusement'. It is a very sinister fairytale-ish story about a family who are have discovered the biggest mine of diamonds on earth and have kept the diamonds and themselves hidden from the world for 3 generations, at the same time enjoying a life of unimaginable luxury and riches. Definitely not in the league of 'The Great Gatsby'. But enjoyed the satirical, curled lip attitude adopted towards the obscenely rich with their decadent lifestyles and flexible ethics which can be bend to protect their cushioned lives and their money.

5 books that mean a lot to me:
Hmmm this is the difficult part and also unfair, can't think of just 5 books. Plus the list is always changing. Anyways here goes...

1) Little Women (by Louisa May Alcott): Have to name this book. In my childhood days I used to come home from school and read Little Women at whichever page I happen to turn to that day. Among other childhood favorites are Emily Bronte's stark and raw Wuthering Heights, the wholesome 'Anne of Green Gables' and its various sequels by L.M.Montgomery, Mark Twain's adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, R L Stevenson's 'Treasure Island', the hilarious 'Three Men in a boat' by Jerome K Jerome, the dark humor in the short stories of Saki, the collected works of O.Henry and of Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling, Gerald Durrell, Jean Webster, George Orwell, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie...

2) Atlas Shrugged (by Ayn Rand): This book had the single most powerful influence on my thinking and at the most impressionable of times in my life.

3) The Little Prince (by Antoine de Saint Exupery): I love this little story and the messages it conveys in its simple way. (Mind you, this book is originally in French and which of the many translated versions you read, makes a huge difference at times regarding your perception about this book)

4) The Prophet (by Kahlil Gibran): How can one have read the Prophet's take on Marriage, Love and Children and not be moved by its powerful truth.

5) Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance (by Robert Pirsig): This is a book to be studied and not just read, or rather a book to be chewed and ruminated over endless times. Having read this book once, its voice and its contents will stay with you forever, surfacing at all those times when you are wondering or debating over the most intrinsic of all things and actions... their quality.

That brings us to the last section... of taking this meme forward. Most people I would like to tag are either not blogging or have discontinued. But here are a few names:
1) NCM
2) Chai
3) Tabs
4) Anupama Viswanathan
5) Rambling Librarian

Kudos to you, Mr.Waterson

2005-06-06T13:13:00.000+08:00

Well... we all have fun and then we grow up...

Thankfully I never grew out of C&H. Bill Waterson elevated the humble cartoon strips into an artform with Calvin & Hobbes. With C&H it has been a case of love at 1st sight or should I say love at 1st strip!!??

Here is the 1st C&H strip which appeared on November 18, 1985:

This is my fav strip with Susie Derkins in it:

This is Moe the class bully, who shaves btw (at six!!):

My fav strip featuring Calvin's dad:

And herez how his dad gets even:

And this one featuring his Mom:

And this is how his Mom handles him:

I love the snowman art series. Here are some of them:

Calvin is quite the inventor. He invented the Transmogrifier and also the Duplicator to duplicate himself and get his chores done. But then his duplicates were are bad as him and he got into worse trouble. So he came up with this brilliant idea of the Ethicator, sadly for Calvin, it brought along its own brand of problems:

And how can one forget Calvinball, Calvin's answer to Baseball, where you make the rules as you go along and the only consistent rule is, you can't use the same rule twice!!. Oh! and the G.R.O.S.S (Get Rid of Slimy Girls) club, which Calvin started to irk Susie. These are my favs in the GROSS series

Calvin hates school but he does make it very interesting for his classmates and hellish for his teacher Miss.Wormwood, eventually ending up in the Principal's office on most days:

And like all 6 year olds he loves Dinosaurs:

He has splendid imagination and creates imaginary characters such as Safari Al, Captain Napalm, Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man, Tracer Bullet... all played by Calvin:

Herez one which all you guys will identify with:

And herez the reason why I (still) identify with Calvin:

And the last C&H strip which appeared on December 31, 1995:

To top it all here are some random favs:

Pablo Neruda

2005-06-02T20:38:00.000+08:00

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

-- Pablo Neruda

It was in a poetry workshop which I attended during my junior college days that I was introduced to Pablo Neruda. I had never heard of him prior to that, maybe because I believe most poetry once translated loses its essence. But P.N's poems weather translation remarkably well. And what you read manages to impress you inspite of the translation!

P.N. has this uncanny knack of writing unusual odes to the most commonplace things like a tomato (ode to a tomato!!!), salt, tuna (huh!!), wine, clothes... And some of these odes he wrote are uncommon beings, paying tribute to those ordinary things which we wouldn't stop to think of. His ode to a tomato manages to raise the ordinary red globe to a rare sublimity. Everytime I read this poem, I am tempted to bite into the obscenely luscious flesh of a tomato and somehow I feel that this time the tomato will taste like manna from heaven, that this simple action will trigger a thousand pleasure-filled explosions in my epicurean mind.

And then there is my favorite 'Ode to Clothes'. It starts like this...
(Every morning you wait,/clothes, over a chair,/to fill yourself with/my vanity, my love,/my hope, my body. )
It is a brilliant piece of poetry. P.N. has breathed life into clothes, animated them, granted them character even.
(In the wind/you billow and snap/as if you were my soul)
The clothes and the wearer are thus inextricably entwined, their lives, their identity, their life and their deaths.
(I greet you/with reverence and then/you embrace me and I forget you,/because we are one/and we will go on/facing the wind, in the night,/the streets or the fight,/a single body,/one day, one day, some day, still.)

P.N. has penned numerous love poems. Am not a huge fan of love poems per se. All of them tend to be along the lines of 'the sky is blue and I love you' or something like that. And as a rule I don't read love poems. They are for lovestruck teenagers and people who go all puppy-eyed over boy bands. Have always thought that if anybody ever did serenade or court me with a love poem I will hit him on the head to knock some sense into him. But among all those love poems that P.N. wrote I have always liked this one.

It is written by a guy who lost his lover. She has left him and now he is inconsolable. His love was immense and so is his pain. As you read the poet's agony speaks to you. You can fathom the depths of his love and you realise how great a love it was though the poet protests (or maybe tries to console himself falsely)...'I no longer love her, that's true, but maybe I do love her.'

He concludes that this is the last pain she will be causing him and these the last verses he writes to her. It is evident that his love is too great to end so abruptly (as P.N so aptly put it ... 'Love is so short and forgetting is so long.'). Hence this last couplet always makes me wonder whether the lover kills himself after writing the poem.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
And blue stars shiver in the distance'.
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her over and over again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter if my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied because it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is no longer with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We both of that time are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's true, but how much I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's true, but maybe I do love her.
Love is so short and forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
My soul is not satisfied because it has lost her.
Though this is the last pain that she makes me suffer
And these the last verses I write for her.

Me and Myself

2005-06-01T10:27:00.000+08:00

In the bus today I caught a lady staring at me in a rather odd way. She looked ready to jump out of the moving bus if I so much as moved to scratch myself. And then it hit me... I had been talking to myself. Well that's hardly anything new. But today I had committed the blunder of letting my lips move visibly and of nodding and shaking my head to something I was reasoning out! How stupid is that now!! Anyways I saved the situation by giving her my 'MYOB' smile and staring her down.

Well... I talk to myself. Can't remember when I cultivated this habit but for years now I have talked to myself and me... you see there are 2 of us. And I am NOT schizophrenic! Just that the 2 girls (thank god both of me are girls, can't imagine what wud happen otherwise! and what if one of me was a duck?!!) that are in me are different. One is a an aggressive pusher... she admonishes, yells, swears, cusses, orders around and the other is a dreamer, quiet, thinker, pushover.

When I was younger I used to have a whole horde of imaginary friends and pets. My favorite was an elephant called Jimbo. As a kid I used to pester my mom to buy us a pet elephant. I would assure her that she wudn't eat much and anyways mom can feed her my breakfast. (how noble!... additionally I also hated the yucky boiled egg and milk breakfast which was forced down my throat... very healthy for an elephant no doubt!). She stubbornly refused. I sulked, pleaded, threw tantrums, threw stones, wailed, charmed... but no avail. So thatz when I secretly got Jimbo. There were also Chetak, the horse that could run as fast as the wind and Brutus, the loyal German Shepherd. Over the years they have all left for Neverland. And now its only 'us'.

And together we are a good team. We joke, bitch, confer, plot, dream, plan, laugh, cackle, argue, debate...

Btw herez our fav quote...
'I used to be schizophrenic
But now both of us are fine'

Loving La Vida Loca

2005-05-31T09:41:00.000+08:00

Come come now
don't you know how it is
that thing called love,
it dies in busy cities.

I love cities. Having been a city girl all my life... I love their power, their fluidity. All cities are so alike in some respects and so different in some others... the millions of contrasting rich and poor of Bombay, the financial district mingling with the historical architecture in London, the nasty politics cohabiting with the strong, spirited resilience of Delhi, the sparkling clean roads and sweeping skyscrapers of Singapore... at their core, they all are about one thing, getting on with it! Matter-of-fact and in your face. They are always on the move and they have no time to idle or romance or grieve.

They don't have the idyllic pace of a village or the inertia of a small town. People bomb them, riot and kill in them, rape, thieve, kidnap, extort, threaten.... and yet the cities keep ticking. Nothing stops or slows them down, nothing fazes them, they are old, wise, hardened things who have been there and done it all and yet harbor young, hopeful hearts.

In all the cities I have been to... there is that all pervading smell of power and money. Yet the cities are not all about power and money alone. They are also about ordinary people who oil the humungous wheels of the city's machinery. They are about rags to riches stories that everybody knows of and riches to rags realities everyone forgets instantly. They are about the bourgeois, the nouveau-riche, the old money, the proletariat, the slum dweller and the pavement bummer. All of them own the cities collectively, and collectively they own each other.

I love this about the cities... their collective life, their collective labor... all of it moving together like a giant juggernaut. In the mornings when Bombay goes to work, commuting by the local trains or BEST buses or shared rickshaws or pooled cars with people of all classes, communitites, religions... packed like sardines breathing each other's air and thinking similar thoughts; I love to stand quietly in the corner of a crowded station and watch the world buzz by. In the evenings when the lights go up and cars whizz by, tired people return home and lovebirds meet to walk hand-in-hand on crowded roads, I love to stand in the middle of the busy Marine Drive, with my back to the roaring ocean, standing tall among these teeming multitudes, my arms outstretched and the wind in my hair and feel the life flowing through my body.

I love the 'aliveness' of the cities. I love to be a part of the incessant hum, the laughter and the nightlife, the fast music, fast food and fast life. I love the purposefulness of all things in it. I love the impersonal coldness and the strange relationships that city people forge. I love the slang, the attitude, the boldness, the city life... they are all a testimonial to the invincibility of the human spirit, the tangible proof of life's power and life's triumph over everything that tries to hold it down.

Oh dear no, you are mistaken...
there's love in the cities am sure.
How could lady love have forsaken
a place where dame life endures?

But this love's not that fabled kind
living fatly in cupid's cushy fence
It thrives in busy people's mind
and lives on hardy common sense.

The ghost of Jimmy Roach

2005-05-30T10:10:00.000+08:00

I am quite fearless about most things. And people don't scare me ever... unless there is this madman with a gun in hand, in which case it is only fair to the guy that I let him scare me.

But there are 2 things which can scare me without any weapon and without even trying... roaches and ghosts! As a rule I never watch horror movies. Whenever I have broken this cardinal rule, I have regretted it no end and forfeited many nights' worth of beauty sleep. And here I have my imagination to blame. Even after the movie is long over, my imagination keeps spinning yarns around the story and the slightest of noises are accorded to this ghost whose sole pupose of existence is to possess me or kill me in the most yuckiest manner conceivable. Though I do believe the ghost will not need to labor much in that department, I will kindly save him/her the trouble of having to kill me. One look at a ghost and I will join his/her league.

And that brings us to roaches. Ek akela cockroach is enough to make life living hell (which I suppose is worse than dying and many times worse than being possessed). If a roach is foolish enough to appear when AG is around, I dispatch him, broom/bathroom slippers/baygon spray in hand to go play knight-in-shining-armour and murder the beast which scared his darling. There have been times when I have kicked him out of bed, reminding him of his duty towards his helpless lady, and motivating him with speeches about how it is his foremost duty to go wreak revenge on the roach who brought tears to the lovely face of his beloved and also how famous lovers have gladly drunk poison to prove their love and all he has to do is to go kill a puny roach. Though I have to admit, it is none of these things that inspire him to go and murder that disgusting creature but rather the murderous joy he derives on squashing the roach and seeing his entrails sticking out of him. His 'ha-ha-ha' after the shameful act is very reminiscent of the little boy who has crushed his first bug underfoot. (See!!!... goes to show how these guys never really grow up). Anyways whatever the reason be, I am not complaining, for I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

But then there are those nights straight out of scary movies when I am all alone at home. And as Murphy's law would have it, everytime I am home alone, a roach appears from nowhere to keep me company. I at times suspect strongly that it is the same guy who keeps appearing everytime and that he has this powerful sensor which lets him know when it is safe to come out of his dungeon and scare me. I even have a name for this scheming guy... Jimmy. (Methought, naming him might help me feel more companionable towards him and that would make me less scared, btw ... didn't work but the name has now stuck!). So Jimmy Roach is a survivor who lives well by his wits (I have to hand him that). He knows when it is safe to show himself and when it is advisable to stay hidden, biding his time. The other day when AG was in India, he came to visit in my kitchen cabinet. And I had to go hungry the whole night. Jimmy always appears in the very same cabinet and at the very same spot, between the frying pan and the wok. Last time he unprecedently made an appearance on a night when AG was home. So off I sent my knight-errant and waited safely behind closed (and locked) doors to hear the happy news of Jimmy's death. For a few minutes I kept hearing a lot of noises from the kitchen, vessels being moved and clatters and clangs. After some time curiosity got the better of me and I crept within a few miles of the kitchen and peeked in to check on what is happening. 'There is no roach here and now I am off to sleep. You might have imagined him.'... said AG on spotting me.

Well, on 2nd thoughts maybe Jimmy was a roach whom I got AG to murder many suns ago and now the ghost is back to seek its due vengeance. That is like my worst nightmare and Halloween rolled into one! I have been saying a prayer of repentance every night ever since!

What's it with life...?

2005-05-27T19:24:00.000+08:00

You live, shit happens, you move on, good happens, that too moves on, you plan, and you plan some more, diligently, carefully, thoughtfully and then the bitch pulls a fast one, you never know when the house of cards came tumbling around your ears... but yet when you almost give up, something pulls you up, an incident, some memory, somebody... someone you know or someone strange... and if nothing and nobody comes by, you still find the strength somewhere inside you, someplace which you didn't know existed and you get by... and the cycle continues. Each day you learn, some days you celebrate and some days you curse but each day you hope anew.

You climb your alpine path, you put your whole self into getting to the top, reaching for those impossible things, those big wins and when you reach there, you look for bigger peaks to conquer and you drudge on... you tell yourself... when I get there I will be the happiest person alive and so you put all you have into getting ‘there’... and when you do arrive it is nothing, all sand thru the fingers, you are happy but it is incomplete, there is this nagging feeling that there is more and there is still a long way to go. So you break your promise of happiness, you simply move on… you feel… 'well, if I made it, maybe this is not big enough, big is what I can’t get…'

Down the years you have these suspicions… maybe life is not about BIG, life is really about smaller things… those childhood days when you laughed over nothing, when you COULD laugh over nothing, when you could... well… laugh just because you want to and just because you are feeling good… over nothing, when you would dance to yourself and skip and run down over wet grass barefoot. You suspect that the ladder to ‘success’ leads to nowhere… it just keeps climbing up and gets steeper in the bargain. Success is relative and success is what you define it to be. And life is maybe simpler. Rainy days, sunny days, springtime, cool wind, new flowers, fresh grass, childhood friends, little sister, first love, lifetime love, dad’s smile, mom’s hands, GOD, faith, laughter, family, homemade food, rice-dal-mango pickles, music, silence, twilight, sunrise, morning walks, picnics, secrets, long talks, stolen kisses, whispered passion…

And life is beautiful… not because of all those heady, huge success, but those smaller things. You top the class and all you remember down those years are the tears of pride in amma’s eyes… not how you felt because YOU topped but how you made amma feel. Success is then maybe not about you but about the people you love and about how you shaped your life with the tools that life handed you. Did you do well, did you live well, were you happy and did you enjoy the journey? For maybe in the end that is all that matters. And that is all that lasts. And I hope I am right… for I have but one life and I don’t wanna screw it up!!

Banging my head as I write this...

2005-05-26T13:44:00.000+08:00

Watched 'Chicago' recently. Needless to say... loved it!! And my favorite is the song done by Queen Latifah... 'When you're good to Mama'

But ugh!! stamp! stamp!roar!bang!ouch!bang!bang!.... can't get the song out of my head and it's been 2 whole days now!!!!!

btw herez the lyrics (And hey Thels' am sure you will love them or maybe you have seen the movie and you already do!! )

(Voiceover)
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The keeper of the keys,
The countess of the clink
the mistress of murderers row,
Matron Mama Morton!

(Queen Latifah)
Ask any of the chickies in my pen
they'll tell you I'm the biggest mother hen.
I love them all and all of them love me
because the system works,
the system called reciprocity.

Got a little motto,
Always sees me through:
"When you're good to Mama,
Mama's good to you."

Theres a lot of favours
I'm prepared to do,
You do one for Mama,
she'll do one for you.

They say that life is tit for tat,
and that's the way I live.
So I deserve a lot of tat
For what I've got to give.

Don't you know that this hand
washes that one too.
When you're good to Mama,
Mama's good to you

If you want my gravy
Pepper my Ragout
Spice it up for mama
She'll get hot for you

When they pass that basket
Folks contribute too,
You put in for Mama,
She'll put out for you

The folks at top the ladder
are the ones the world adores
So boost me up my ladder, kid
and I'll boost you up yours

Lets all stroke together
Like the princeton crew
When your stroking Mama,
Mama's stroking you

So whats the one conclusion
I could bring this number to -
When you're good to Mama,
Mama's good to you

After a while you learn

2005-05-25T09:37:00.000+08:00

There is this poem which someone send me many years ago and since then I have tacked it up over my desk wherever I go. (I still don't know who the poet is).

After a while, you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises,
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open,
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans,
and futures have a way of falling down in midflight.

And after a while, you learn
that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong,
and you really do have worth.
And you learn and you learn
With every new day, you learn.

Long Weekends?? No thank you!

2005-05-24T11:56:00.000+08:00

Another long weekend. Have had a succession of long weekends and have been undecided on whether I like them or not. Well now I know... I don't! I would like them only if they were a rule not an exception.

Had a good time nevertheless. Saturday... more house-hunting. AG and I are getting more and more warmed up to the idea of not moving! Gorged on the Indian buffet at the Tiffin Room in the lovely Raffles Hotel for lunch. They have a great selection of Desserts. Tried all of them ;) and diet sensibilities be damned!!! Evening, went to Kent Ridge Park for a walk. But the rains followed us there. So we got on a bus to Esplanade. Spent some time there and then walked to Boat Quay. Sat at the steps watching the river, talking (i.e. me talked, AG, as usual, pretended to listen). Some rich man's kid was getting married and the whole area around the Asian Civilizations Museum was lit up. They even had a beautiful fireworks display to the tune of an orchestra!!! Flagged a cab to China Square and ate at this new place called Mumbai Makan. The owners are Maharashtrians and the wife is chief chef so the food is authentic. They have good Vada Pav and are planning to introduce Misal Pav and 'Bombay style Falooda'

Sunday... spent the day at Sentosa at the Coastes Beach bar. It is a cool place to hangout. Lotsa swimsuit clad people, taking in the sun and music, also good cocktails and decent food. Tried their chicken curry... was surprisingly good!

Monday... Brunched at Oscar's at Anchorpoint. Great pineapple chicken fried rice at the Viet-Thai stall. Went across the road to Ikea and spent a coupla hours there. Shopped a bit too. Evening... had tickets to Star Wars Episode III but didn't feel like going so ditched it and wott else... shopped! Dined at Mumbai Makan again. This time we hogged... Dahi Bataata Sev Puri, Sabudana Wada, 'Indian Chinese' Hakka Noodles, Pani Puri and Pav Bhaji. Finally my search for good Pav Bhaji in Singapore is complete!!

Got back home and watched Angela's Ashes. The movie is good and Robert Carlyle as Malachy Sr and Emily Watson as Angela are convincing. But the book is a must read before you take to the movie.

All that brings me to today. And the less said about it the better.

Whatz in a name?

2005-05-20T10:46:00.000+08:00

Got to office grinning from ear to ear... And herez why...
Was watching the morning news section on the bus and the female reader had a tough time pronouncing Srinivasan Balakrishnan Muthuswamy. She first did some breathing exercises (inhale-exhale-inhale...) and then gathered some courage and then faltered, and grimaced and went... "Sri-nni-vvva-san (audible sigh) Balaaa-kkrishhhh-naan (another phew) Mutt-hooo-samy" (phew! again). By this time my smile which had hinted around the corners was now a broad grin and a small cough (which in such situtations sounds suspiciously like the startings of a guffaw in my case).

But don't you just love it!!! The unpronounceable, 10 feet long names we Indians spring on the rest of the world. The Indian Prime Minister with the longest name is someone we all know merely as Deve Gowda but his complete name would fill up a few lines... It goes... Hardanahalli Dodde Gowda Deve Gowda, where Haradanahalli is the name of the village in Karnataka he comes from, Dodde Gowda is his father's name and Deve Gowda is his own, Gowda also being the family name. Traditionally names in India tend to pay homage to the person's father and the village. Alongwith is also attached the family name which is usually indicative of caste, community and at times even ancestral occupation. Some of us do love the long name which when translated to English almost sounds like a whole poem by itself. This guy from Andhra Pradesh named his daughter Sri Arunachala Kadambavana Sundari Prasunnamba Kanyaka (the blessed virgin who is beautiful and carries with her the radiance of sunshine, the fragrance of garden flowers, and the presence of God). And mind you, this is just the girl's own name. Added to this will be her village name, father's name and family name. If she goes to one of those schools which insist on calling every student by his/her complete name during roll call every morning, the recess bell will ring by the time the teacher manages to wade through her name. Anyways no self-respecting person in Andhra will sport a name shorter than 3 feet. So what would happen in this school which is full of kids from AP? Go figure.

And then there are those unpronounceable Keralite names and words which include syllables that are non-existent in any other existing language spoken on earth. Having grown up watching scores of Malayalam movies, I manage to pronounce these words correctly but have met numerous authentic malayalees who go through life grappling with words like ... Kozhikode, Pazham, Alapuzha, Nyazhaycha... mind you the 'zh' does not contain either 'zzzz' or 'hh'. It is this unique 'zhr' which sounds like a cough married to a deep throated, tongue twisting 'rh'.

My own name, Anupama, I have always considered a tad long but then easy on the tongue. Apparently not! It has been mauled badly through the years. Starting from our very own Mallu friend who insists on calling me 'Anubbama', which sounds convincingly like someone cussing me and calling me a bum! And then the American version which goes... Ey-nupaama. Also the British style of... Anu-pha-ama where the pha sounds as if, midway through calling out my name the person has taken to imitating a soda bottle 'pop'. So now I have learned my lesson and introduce myself as Anu for the sake of the severely phonetically challenged.

Why, I have heard of this German backpacker (Aren't they everywhere? and in that case are there any Germans left in Germany), whom someone I know met on the train to Delhi and who wanted to go to the beautiful town which he pronounced with... 'Aaa' followed by a mumble. In India when you meet any tourist who wants to go to a place which he can't manage to pronounce beyond the 1st syllable of 'Aa' you confidently send him on his way to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Only in the case of our backpacker it went a bit off the mark. Turned out his 'Aaa-mumble mumble' was supposed to be a seaside town with many lagoons and Chinese fishing nets. I can only imagine how forlorn he must have looked when he was told that he was on his way to Delhi which is landlocked and his seaside town, which my friend rightly deduced to be Alaphuza, is at the other end of India and a great deal further south! My friend tells me he now knows how Colombus would have looked when he realized that the 'India' which he has discovered was a few latitudes and longitudes away from where it is supposed to be.

Beyond Vengeance

2005-05-19T14:47:00.000+08:00

Watched The Interpreter. The usual movie with an unusual message... that of forgiveness. It does not make the common mistake of equating forgiveness to cowardice. It is a delightful thriller and then there is the superb Nicole Kidman, who keeps getting better with every movie and in this one manages to look her most vulnerable but yet essaying some hidden, inner strength. After her brilliant performance in 'The Hours' I can go watch a Kidman movie on the strength of that name. But then in 'The Hours' all actors performed their best. The movie is quite extraordinary, and we will save it for later. For now getting back to The Interpreter... am not reviewing it here.

Just wanted to blog about this dialogue in the movie, which caught my attention. Sylvia's (Kidman) parents and sister were killed in a landmine in Matobo, a war torn country in Africa, ruled by a dictator and a country she calls home. Later when working as a UN interpreter she overhears a whispered conversation which reveals a plot to kill this dictator when he arrives at the UN headquarters to deliver a diplomatic speech. She reports this conversation but ironically finds herself a suspect due to her tragic past for which it is assumed she blames the evil dictator. When Sean Penn alludes to his suspicion of her, she tells him about this tribal tradition, native to Matobo. When a man is killed his murderer is thrown in the river, bound head to toe so that he cannot swim to safety and save himself. And then the victim's family has a choice... they can choose to let the murderer drown and in this way justice shall be done. But in Matobo, they believe that after this the family will grieve forever. If they choose to jump in and save the drowning man, they would have accepted that life is unjust and once they do this their mourning will be over. Then she says... 'Vengeance is a lazy form of grief'

And that got me thinking... Isn't it so true? And if it is true then the world around us is so lazy. People wreak vengeance as a form of grieving, hoping that revenge will be the nostrum for their grief. Though revenge can never be a balm. It only serves to aggravate.

At the same time, we have to understand that forgiveness is not turning the left cheek towards the one who slapped your right. Am not a Gandhian, simply because it requires a different kind of person and a rare kind of wisdom to be able to understand Gandhian principles. But I do believe that at times forgiveness is the best reaction. And I don't believe this on the strength of some sublime, saintly ideals. I have my selfish reasons. I believe that a lot of stress that I carry around like an accumulating time bomb is because of my incapability to let go. I hold on to incidents and I stack up on rage. And eventually the dam bursts and overflows, upsetting me and my loved ones. Many are the times when I have regretted what I have said in the heat of the moment and wished I had bitten my tongue off before I uttered those words which have cut through the heart of someone who loves me. And many are the times I have bottled up my anger for days on end, only to have the bottle burst and destroy or badly damage priceless relationships. Finally, stress has been found to be the root cause of many an illness, both physical as well as emotional and mental.

Simply not worth it! And all it takes to escape this terrible monster is one extraordinary word... forgiveness. Indeed we are all lazy. Because, initially, it takes a lot of effort to be able to forgive. It takes superhuman strength and one goes through a lot of mental agony before he/she can learn to be forgiving. Most of us are unwilling to do the hard work it takes. We instead prefer the easy way out and hence seek revenge. Yet forgiveness is such a simple thing once mastered though so difficult to bring oneself to commit to. All one has to do is to open the clenched fist and let go. And yet don't we all hold on and bottle up, until one day, we can take it no longer?

Kamat's Potpourri

2005-05-18T14:27:00.000+08:00

Rediscovered this multiple award-winning and truly great website called Kamat's Potpourri. Used to read it regularly about 3 years ago and then somewhere down the line lost track. Found it again when I was searching for something the other day.

It was created and is maintained by a family of four, the Kamats, and I take the liberty to quote them here "Kamat's Potpourri is the personal home page of the four members of the Kamat family: Krishnanand Kamat, Jyotsna Kamat, Vikas Kamat and Hiryoung Kim Kamat. Among them, they share three Doctorates, Five Masters degrees and seven other University degrees, and Kamat's Potpourri constitutes over a hundred person-years of work."

The Kamats have put in a lot of painstaking efforts in the making and running of the website. It is a veritable treasure trove of information on India's culture and some of which is fast vanishing. Their documentation of many of the endangered communities and practices is highly commendable.

They have probably the biggest collection of pictures showcasing India and its varied culture. And the writeups are pretty fascinating as well.

Again I quote and this time, one of the reviews the website has received...
"It's presumptuous to create a site on Indian culture. To encapsulate the country's diversity in a few hundred web pages and explain its mystery in user-friendly language, is usually a disappointing attempt. The Kamats didn't attempt anything so ambitious, and succeeded beyond all expectations."

They have even been awarded the 'Site of the week' by Encyclopedia Britannica!

Check it out!

India

2005-05-17T10:55:00.000+08:00

India, you come to me unheeded
in surprising places, unexpected times
bringing fresh and sepia memories
of a life I loved and left behind.

Mornings I wake up nostalgic with
the pungency of mama's rack of spice,
the strong mogra of her incense,
her morning bustle, her cajoling voice.

I walk past one of your women here
bindi on forehead and docile expression
and I encounter your moustachioed men
eyes filled with lustful attention.

Everywhere I go, an army of desi tourists
are already proclaiming their global presence
with their loud talk and spoilt kids,
pure vegetarian food and poor civic sense.

You pour in when rains paint a green blur
or when the sun seeks its vengeance.
The cacophony of crows and scolding mynahs
and the strong, sweet jasmine fragrance.

You come to me in hot tumblers
of filter kaapis and masala chais,
steaming sambhars, black makhani daals
puri bhaajis and long basmati rice.

In traffic jams and foreign lands,
city lights and littered roads,
stinky corners, dirty plastic bags
and tall temples with colorful gods.

Every Diwali away from you
I remember your jubilant lights
Every Holi that I miss here
I think of colors and balloon fights

Every day I long for you
and strangely though, i want you not.
Yet you come blessed with awkward grace
beauty, blisters, warts and all.

Weekend Log

2005-05-16T17:16:00.000+08:00

Ami was here on a 2 day visit on her way to LA. Reached Friday morning and left Sunday morning. So I was on sick leave on Friday (wink wink!!). After fetching Ami from the airport and breakfasting with her, went straight to the doc and confused him with a dozen symptoms. Actually started with a humble nightly headache and sleeplessness complaint but he looked unconvinced (mebbe it was my guilty conscience) so then added weakness, nausea and threw in giddiness for good measure. Also showed him some bumps which had fortuitously developed under my chin. By then the poor guy looked tortured and just tossed me a medical certificate and some medicines!

Back home, my symptoms magically vanished and Ami and I went sightseeing. We started with taking the MRT to City Hall for which we needed to change at Dhoby Ghaut. I had warned her of my legendary abilities to get lost and also to not get off at the right stop so she was not too surprised when Little India came by and I started with ... 'This is Little India and this is where we get off when we need to go to Mustafa... and oh!! oh!! we need to get off now' And off I rushed in the most Phoebe-esque manner, tagging her along before the spiteful doors slid close on us. Had to take the next train back to Dhoby Ghaut! Anyways after all that hard work and chatter we were hungry and stopped at Raffles' 'Out of the Pan' to feast on Iced Tea and Crepes stuffed with Tandoori Chicken ... yummm! Then in typical girls' day out fashion we devoted the next few hours to window shopping at Suntec and Orchard Road stopping only for some Affogato at Haagen Dazs and for breath! We also poked around at Esplanade and I gave her a tour of the Library at Esplanade. At 5:30 in the evening our feet were crying for mercy and our legs were on the verge of mutiny, our stomachs were growling loud enough for the shoppers around to hear and look at us quizzically. We stopped for refeuling at Shaw House food court. Ami went for some Pasta and I chose Kadhi, Dal, Chole with Rice and Naan. By this time it was twilight (don't you love that word) and we flagged a cab to the Merlion. Spend the evening taking in the sights at the Merlion and the CBD area. Walked down to Boat Quay and flirted with the old boatmen there, also took the customary boat ride on the Singapore River. Had planned to dine at Clark Quay but after the boat ride we had barely enuff energy to get us back home.

Saturday early afternoon we planned a trip to Sentosa. Started with lunch at the local food court at Harborfront Centre, introduced Ami to some local food, drinks and dessert. Got into the cable car to Sentosa. At Sentosa took in all the touristy sights... Carlsberg tower, Fort Siloso, Underwater World and Dolphin Lagoon. Unwinded at the Coastes bar and then took cable car to Mount Faber. Mount Faber does afford one, the best view in Singapore, especially in the evening. You can get up there and feel Lord of all you survey.

That was it, 2 days had gone whizzing by and Sunday morning it was time for Ami to leave on her 18 hour flight to LA. She had opened up a bottle of lovely, old memories of the days when we were flatmates, of days of fun and reading Harry Potter together, gossiping into the night, giggling over nothing, cooking together, fighting common enemies together, breakfasting in the Infy foodcourt and then meeting for late afternoon tea, spending lazy weekends and solving the Hindu cryptic crossword. During the 2 days she spend here, we had talked non-stop and laughed a lot, gossiped, caught up on news and now that she has left, am missing her terribly :(

Cafe Culture

2005-05-15T22:05:00.000+08:00

Spent the best part of the evening lounging in a Starbucks outlet. Walked out of GV Marina after watching the afternoon show of 'The Interpreter' and encountered some good weather... not sunny but pleasant daylight. So AG and I filled a bag of nougats and marzipan and bitter chocolates at a local Pick-a-Bag chocolaterie and walked down in search of a place to sit and read. The best place on offer was at a Starbucks, close at hand. As an aside... did you know... they are now offering low-fat cold coffees?? Have always been a coffee lover, coming from a south Indian family where strong filter kaapi in the morning with M.S's Suprabhatam in the background is part of the hallowed morning tradition.

Cafes seem to have spouted a whole civilization of their own... the gang of students lionizing the sofas and cramming in their textbooks, the trio of girlfriends with huge bags comparing their shopping, the European tourist filling in her postcards, the busy banker working at his laptop, the couple in the corner who had run out of conversation a coupla years back and now sleeping with their coffees going stone cold... all these and more of their kind make up the species you repeatedly run into at the cafes. I take a lot of clandestine joy in staring at the people, noticing their clothes, shoes, the books they are reading, the shopping bags they are lugging, eavesdropping into their conversations... all this while feigning to look beyond them into the distance.

Cafes have always drawn me to them with their fascinating mix of people. As a kid when Dad used to take me along to the city to buy books at Strand and Bookpoint, I would look forward to our sojourn at the nearby Irani cafe or Mahesh tea stall to have hot steaming chai and bun after a few hours of browsing and shopping. These places were poor cousins of the modern day air-conditioned Coffee Days and Baristas with their 'in' mix of 'cool' crowd, music and generous spaces. The erstwhile cafes and chai-stalls were utilitarian with white marble topped round tables and heavy chairs or sunmica topped tables and plastic chairs and the humble ceiling fan. There would be a 'chotu' dressed in torn shirt and shorts serving you your tea in white ceramic cups and saucers and thick glasses of water which he would pick four at a time by dipping a finger into the water and wrapping another across the rim. AIR would be playing old or new hindi film music from an antique radio which graced the place of honor at the owner's cash counter.The cafe patrons would be a varied and interesting mix of old retirees, busy young executives, gossiping babus from the nearby office, 'jhola' carrying journos, khaki uniformed rickshaw drivers, smartly outfitted car drivers and merely tired shoppers like us. There would be a mirror over the wash basin with a sign over it saying... 'No combing hair here'. The element of coolness came from the automatic, sensor-equipped tap fitted at the washbasin! As I grew up I frequented different and progressively 'cool' versions of cafes.

College days saw me paying daily and day-long homage to that all-important shrine... the college canteen! Here we would sit... me and my gang and be plied with mountains of misal pav or vada pav and gallons of 'adrak-walli cutting, paani kum, doodh jyaada' in glasses so thick, they could have been bulletproof. The smokers among us would chain-smoke through their customary packet of ciggies while the rest of us would shell peanuts and chew on gum 'cowboy-style' and all of us would through all this manage to look cool in the inescapable tradition of the college crowd. There was also Mani's coffeeshop round the corner which stands till date as a defiant competitor to the brand new gleaming Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) opposite to it. Only the crowd has diminished. The college kids now patronize the CCD outlet while Mani still attends to retired Mr Iyer and his friends who drop in regularly after their morning walks or in the evenings. You will also see Anna who comes to get his kaapi and idli sambhar leaving his neighbouring 'Chainese' stall for a few minutes under the management of the Nepali cook who has been employed only because of his resemblance to the Indian idea of Chinese. Mani still sells his strong sugary kaapi in small tumblers placed in wide mouthed vessels which you can use in conjunction with the tumbler to whip up more froth or simply to cool ur coffee in.

After I left college and Bombay for the IT haven, B'lore, I started spending time at Coffee Days and Baristas. In fact we had a CCD outlet in the Infy campus and every morning I would enter my cubicle with my cappuccino 'to-go' firmly in one hand and my slice of walnut cake in the other. I slowly acquired the aristrocratic taste of speciality coffees from exotic, faraway places like Sumatra, Java, Kenya and Ethiopia. I learned the difference in these coffees too, the chocolatey aftertaste of the Javan and the strong blueberry flavor of the Kenyan. And slowly I transformed... from the Kaapi slurper to the Coffee sipper! When I went to the UK, there too, I would regularly seek out the Starbucks outlet every weekend to plan my sightseeing plan in peace. During the months I spent in Mangalore Infy, every weekend saw me and Nits and Rags ensconced in the airconditioned environs of the CCD at Balmatta Circle. Here we sat, reading our books, playing Scrabble, discussing books, poetry, cribbing, bitching about the project, people-watching, gossiping, quizzing and yes... gulping down endless cups of coffee and demolishing the veggie grilled sandwiches.

You can usually recognize veterans of the cafes by the way they swagger in, claim the best seat and most importantly by the manner in which they order. They walk to the counter and confidently ask for an iced latte, having here, low-fat, grande, no cream and walk away coffee in hand and 2 bags of demerara sugar. The newcomer meanwhile walks in looking confused and spends a lot of time perusing the menu on the board behind the counter, holds up the more experienced and impatient patrons in the line behind while he/she hems and haws and asks for an iced cappuccino. The confusion mounts, when the kid behind the counter politely and in perfect English (!!) runs this frustrating customer through a customary set of questions... short/medium/tall, decaf or not, to-go or having here, with or without cream...

The cafe atmosphere also does this amazing, unexplainable something to me nowadays... and before you have any ideas let me explain. In addition to the horridly ill-mannered staring that I carry out, I also tend to delve on matters both deep and shallow, mundane and philosophical while getting my fix of caffeine and people-watching. I debate vigorously in my mind over many heavyweight issues. And so there I was, yesterday, in Starbucks when a series of deep and ponderous thoughts came floating by to roost in my mind. And me without my laptop or even a pen and paper! So I committed them to memory, resolving to write them down later and maybe post them. Got back home and rushed to my laptop only to discover that whoosh and gone... and now there was nothing... nada... couldn't think of anything :(

Grrr... it is so frustrating to sit facing a blank post, scratching your head till it bleeds but yet have no creative success. Maybe next time am down with a bout of writer's block will lug my laptop to the nearest Starbucks or Pacific Coffee or even the local Kopitiam!

Until then enjoy your cafe Diablo and Cheers!

Charlotte Gray

2005-05-12T13:36:00.000+08:00

Watched Charlotte Gray the other day. After having read the book and having loved it... I was prepared to be disappointed by the movie. Surprisingly the movie does justice to the book. Of course you miss out on some things which only a book can hand you but overall the movie captures the essence of the novel.

Faulks has this inimitable style of storytelling in the tradition of other great storytellers. He is able to breathe life into his characters and create each one as a unique person with his/her own moral strength and weaknesses. When you get to know his characters you revel in their human-ness and you identify with their reactions. And then there is the landscape he provides and the authentic setting for the story. His research to this end is faultless.

Have always considered Sebastian Faulks' war triology an education into the effects of war, not just on the frontline soldiers and civilians but more importantly on generations thereafter for whom the war and its brutalities are a grotesque legacy they can't escape. It will indeed take a whole post by itself to write about 'Birdsong' which is my personal favorite. But since this post is about C.G. let me stick to it.

C.G is about an ordinary woman's journey through the roller coaster of war and her subsequent emergence as a different woman, now touched by the ghost of war and made extraordinary, stronger by her experiences. She loses her lightness of spirit and naivete and gains a strength and steeliness of heart which her earlier, normal, pre-war life would never have afforded her.

Charlotte Gray is a young British woman whose lover is a fighter pilot. She is inordinately fond of France, having been exposed to Parisian life when she was younger and is quite anguished by the atrocities the Nazi occupation has brought upon France. As a contribution to the war effort and on an impulse she signs up for a training to be a spy. Meanwhile her lover is lost in a foray into Nazi occupied France. Charlotte is quite devastated on learning of this and encouraged by a typically childish fantasy of finding him and bringing him back she volunteers to go into France on a recon mission. This decision of hers is made not with some noble objective in mind. It is actually brought about due to a more personal reason. Later on in the book one of the characters, a veteran of WW-I, says something to the effect that you fight wars not for your country but for someone you love. And as the reader you understand this completely.

In France she meets another man, a different kind of man, stronger, quieter... and the changes that the war has wrought in her enables her to understand more of and relate more to this Frenchman. As far as her recon mission is concerned, she fails. She fails also in finding her lover whom she wrongly assumes to be dead on the basis of some information she collects. But through the book the reader never realises her failures. On the contrary in her struggle and her survival, one sees the truimph not just of one woman but of a whole people who had been beaten down by war and yet were unvanquished because they kept the good in them alive. They loved and they had faith. They touched many other lives and inspite of their own misfortunes, they helped someone else get by.

And as is characteristic of the other books in the triology, this one too has side-stories. One of them is that of Julien's (the Frenchman's) father who is an eccentric painter living alone in a sprawling, dilapidated mansion. Also there are 2 Jewish children whose parents have been deported and they are being hidden by Julien in his father's house.

It is a lovely story, brilliantly told by Faulks and it leaves you shaken and yet touched, saddened and yet oddly happy, horrified by war yet inspired by the moral and emotional struggle people go through to survive it.

Ruminating over Pi

2005-05-11T11:18:00.000+08:00

Current Read: 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel.
Bookmark at: Where Pi has just caught his first Dorado for Richard Parker

Current Thought:
Innumerable times in my life have I said with unwavering confidence... 'I can never do that' or 'If that happens to me I'll die'. But having heard/read myriad tales of ordinary people who have surmounted extraordinary odds and survived or of commonplace people who have climbed some uncommon pinacle of achievement; my confidence in the impossibility of anything wavers like a seismograph needle at 9.0 on the Richter scale.

All of us display unpredictable reactions and hitherto unknown ability, when faced with even the mildest of threatening or challening incidents. Now imagine what would happen when you are cornered in some life-threatening situation where you need to survive by the dint of your grit and spirit and yes... brainpower. You can't predict what you would do! If your will for survival is strong enough you would fight as if possessed by The Almighty.

Isn't it an amazing thing... the human spirit... unpredictable, daunting, invincible yet also compassionate and giving. It is the true superhero and it lives in each one of us. All of us harness that most elemental in us every single day. The frail homeless boy who lives on the pavement surives due to it and the mountain climber who conquers the Everest relies on the very same spirit to help him reach the top.

The more I read this book the more I am entranced by this ability that the puniest of beings has, to fight when cornered and survive the impossible. Truly... Impossible is nothing!

Excerpt from 'The Wanderer'

2005-05-10T13:46:00.000+08:00

Upon a day Beauty and Ugliness met on the shore of a sea. And they said to one another, "Let us bathe in the sea."

Then they disrobed and swam in the waters. And after a while Ugliness came back to shore and garmented himself with the garments of Beauty and walked away.

And Beauty too came out of the sea, and found not her raiment, and she was too shy to be naked, therefore she dressed herself with the raiment of Ugliness. And Beauty walked her way.

And to this very day men and women mistake the one for the other.

Yet some there are who have beheld the face of Beauty, and they know her notwithstanding her garments.And some there be who know the face of Ugliness, and the cloth conceals him not from their eyes.

--- Khalil Gibran

'Tis a small world after all

2005-05-06T14:30:00.000+08:00

Haven't we all been struck time and again by how small the world really is? And what with all the large scale global migrations happening the world has really become one giant, bustling melting pot of a city where you never know when you will turn a corner and bump into a friend you haven't seen for the last 10 years or more.

Had one of those phone calls which go on for hours and yet when you glance at your watch, you are taken by surprise at the amount of time that has gone by! NCM called and we got talking of ships, submarines and saucepans... and in the course of some flippant howdys, 'ping-pongish' banters and some serious stuff, he let slip a name... supposedly a friend of his whom he met at this organization where he volunteers. And this friend is from the some place in Bombay. But considering how big Bombay is and how not-so-small Mulund is, the probability of me knowing this friend was miniscule to say the least. So when he said 'Sapna' methought, well... that is the most common Indian name after Pooja and right next to Shweta. Then he said 'she is an architect'. That rang a bell which said 'Khakaria'. Bang on... he said it too... Well we knew the same girl!! What are the odds to that really?!!

And come to think of it... this sort of thing happens with eerie regularity and am sure must have happened to all of us and more than once.

Small world, coincidence... wottever it is I love it when it happens. Makes you wonder at the randomness and the vastness of the world and its amazing ability to take you by such surprise.

'Yesterday'

2005-05-05T16:14:00.000+08:00

'Yesterday' you left like Cinderella
twenty-four suitcases you packed
but you left memories lying around
and all the tasks you slacked.

Nine a.m. filled with the voices
of a daily medley of busy tasks.
A cold breakfast and hot news
and steaming tea from a flask.

'Yesterday' you were so alive
Last morning at sunny nine.
But I slumbered your afternoon away
and I wasted your evening in wine.

After three nightmares and a ring
I wake up with my head crushed in a vice.
Like an overripe melon split-wide-open
The afternoon buzzes in with a thousand flies.

I cut my head and I leave it in
a glass of Alka-Seltzer to cure.
And dumbly I start to go about
the 'Today' that I have to endure.

GOBbledygook

2005-05-03T17:31:00.000+08:00

You sit in the corner of my eye
like unwashed gob, i can't espy.
i scribble, i slash and... rewrite
rhymes, iambs and dactyls i fight.
You smirk, You sneer, play hard to get
i write, i fight, you make me sweat.
You squat heavily in my head
bursting weak verses. Overfed.

Oh! begone you beast, I order you
sullied are the words you spew.
Leave me alone, Oh begone!
I've a brilliant idea to build upon.

But You stay unheeding, in my eye
causing all my thoughts to die.
i live vanquished, i come undone
You smirk the joy of a battle won.

Summer of '00

2005-04-29T12:04:00.000+08:00

I discovered this great site today, it has excerpts from Friends, all episodes and all seasons. (You can send me a thank you note if this is where you heard of it first) I stumbled on it because I was searching for my favorite quote from Friends.

It is from Season 7, episode 8 where --
"The gang all play a game where they have to try to list all 50 states; Ross gets so involved in it that he misses Thanksgiving dinner. Chandler and Monica find out that Phoebe is keeping a dog in the apartment; Chandler reveals his fear of dogs. Rachel invites Tag over for Thanksgiving dinner. He's depressed because he and his girlfriend just broke up. Rachel tries to decide whether to comfort him as a friend, or to make a move. She decides to just be a friend, but Joey lets the secret slip out."

The quote goes like this...
Rachel: When a guy breaks up with his girlfriend, what is an appropriate amount of time to wait before you make a move?
Phoebe: Oh, I'd say about a month.
Monica: Really? I'd say 3 to 4.
Joey: Half hour. (Rachel turns to look at him and he nods yes.)
Rachel: Interesting.
Monica: When it's your assistant, I would say never.
Joey: All right, Rach, the big question is, does he like you? All right? Because if he doesn't like you, this is all a moo-point.
Rachel: Huh. A moo-point?
Joey: Yeah, it's like a cow's opinion. It just doesn't matter. It's moo.
Rachel: (to Monica and Phoebe) Have I been living with him for too long, or did that all just make sense?

Have been sneaking time out from work (It sacrilegious seeing how much of work debris am lying under) to read this site and it has been a superhuman task to laugh without being heard. So there are occasional snorts, grunts and coughs which suspiciously sound like a laugh... all orginating from yours truly with the boss sitting a coupla uncomfortable feet away! Well he is a cool duck ... my boss is! But yunnoh how it is... don't wanna spoil the hard earned image of a hard working, i-mean-business-and-only-that girl.
But ggod this site makes it so difficult... it is irresistible!

Here are some more quotes... (read on if you are a 'Friendsophile') --

Joey: Say hello to the new champ of Chandler's dumb States game.
Ross: Wow, how many have you got?
Joey: Fifty-six!

Phoebe: Well, no no, you have to stay back. I, I have the pox.
Ryan: Chicken or small?
Phoebe: Chicken. Which is so ironic considering I'm a vegetarian.

Chandler: Hey, stick a fork in me, I am done.
Phoebe: Stick a fork what?
Chandler: Like, when you're cooking a steak.
Phoebe: Oh, OK, I don't eat meat.
Chandler: Well then, how do you know when vegetables are done?
Phoebe: Well you know, you just, you eat them and you can tell.
Chandler: OK, then, eat me, I'm done.

Ross: Yeah, she finally stopped crying yesterday, but then she found one of Richard's cigar butts out on the terrace....

Phoebe: Oh, okay, that explains it. I got a call at two in the morning, but all I could hear was, like, this high squeaky sound, so I thought, okay it's, like, a mouse or a possum. But then I realized, like, okay, where would a mouse or a possum get the money to make the phone call?

Joey: Wheel!

Chandler: Of!

Joey: Fortune! This guy is so stupid. It's Count Rushmore!

Chandler: You know, you should really go on this show.
Joey: It's like this chemical thing, you know. Every time she starts laughing, I just wanna... pull my arm off, just so I can have something to throw at her.

Chandler: Thanks for trying. Oh, and by the way--there is no Count Rushmore!

Joey: Yeah? Then... then who's the guy that painted the faces on the mountain?

Chandler: All right, look, look. What did... what did you get for Angela Delveccio for her birthday?
Joey: She didn't have a birthday while we were going out.
Chandler: For three years?

Monica: Fine! Judge all you want to but, (points to Ross) married a lesbian, (points to Rachel) left a man at the altar, (points to Phoebe) fell in love with a gay ice dancer, (points to Joey) threw a girl's wooden leg in a fire, (points to Chandler) livin' in a box!!

And i could go on... and on... and on... (okay! I think you get the drift.)

When I was in Engineering school, Rons, Shanky, Nins and I used to watch all the Friends episodes and even reruns, then discuss them the next day. Endless times we have been chucked out of class for laughing out loud. And Rons I still blame you for most of them! But then we have been chucked out for worse things.

Watching Friends is always a trip down memory lane. Takes me back to those days when we were incorrigible, indomitable, arrogant and cool. Taking 'panga' with the professors and spending whole days in the canteen. Charming the seniors into doing our assignments and Bode plots and graphs which were finally done in a dozen handwritings and 4 different colored inks, GT's, fooling around, eating dozens of plates of 'misal pav' and drinking gallons of 'cutting chai'! College fests, conning sponsors and dancing till u r drunk on the music... so drunk that even the sugarcane wallah's bell gets you grooving in the middle of the main road!! Strange hairstyles, scary makeups, earrings as big as shields and wooden bead strings long enough to fall way below waist! PJ's, loud behavior and devil may care attitudes. Vivas, Exams and Practicals... where it was the Prof's chance to get even and get even they did, those ##$%$#%%^&%!!!

Whatever happened to those wonderful, beautiful days and where did they go?
We all got struck down by sobriety and practical life... practical joke... more like it! Welcome to the real world and all that crap.

On Bharatiya Sanskriti

2005-04-28T11:42:00.000+08:00

Last week a teenaged girl was raped by a policeman in Mumbai. And following this the Shiv Sena(SS) mouthpiece Samna printed a highly intellectual and research based article on the main provocation of rape and how to avoid it.

According to this true proponent and guardian of 'Baratiya Sanskriti'(B.S) Indian women are aping the West by wearing revealing clothes, and it's these titillating outfits worn by these shameless women that are transforming the good hearted and staunch practisionists of the very same B.S from Dr Jekyls to Mr.Hydes and leading them into attacking the women. It is of course no fault of theirs and by raping the shameless hussies they are only following the BS that they revere so much.

At fault also are parents, guardians, teachers and all such people who are in a position to advise the girls and women against their sinful behavior and teach them the to follow the true dictates of B.S but fail to do so. The women of India have been misled into believing that since India is a democratic country, they can live as they wish to. This is unforgivable. They should be taught to go back to those dark ages when according to the SS, BS was practised in its true form and women still went around in respectable purdahs and performed their true kartavya of taking care of the house, bearing children and if the husband dies prior to them, then doing the sati. That according to SS's research would be the true karma of a woman.

But we Indians seem to have forgotten that. We now allow our girls to be educated and this fills them with the false feeling that they are equal to men. We allow our girls the choice to decide for themselves. We allow our women to dress, behave, live, perform equal to the men. And this is where we are committing our biggest atrocity against Indian culture. The men raping our women are doing nothing wrong. They are not going against our great BS. They are not to blame. Like poor lambs led to slaughter, we shameless women are destroying the will of these innocent men and leading them to rape us by wearing our hipster jeans and low cut tops. It is we who have forgotten our culture and our true identity.

But all is not lost yet (phew!). It is reassuring to note that the whole nation is not yet in the grip of this moral corruption and there are among us a few enlightened Indian women and men who are true to the BS preached by the Sena, inspite of any education they might have received! These wise souls have grasped what the BS truly stands for and have recognised the truth in what the SS has published.

They alone know what part of their body the nuns, shut in their convent in Central India, were exhibiting which issued the come-hither signal to their rapists. And they alone can comprehend what flesh it is that the thousands of women, everywhere in India, dressed in saris and salwar kurtas are flashing to deserve the rape they are put through.

Would these wise souls and the SS please come forward and take charge of our moralities. And fellow indians who are going against BS please extend all your support and blind obedience to these enlightened souls who will lead us away from our path of westernized decadence and teach us what it means to be a true Bharatiya.

All Indians are my brothers and sisters!!

2005-04-26T12:14:00.000+08:00

If you are an Indian and have travelled anywhere in India, you must have been asked 'Where in India are you from?' translating to 'Where are your ancestors from, what is your mother tongue, what community do you belong to ... etc?' So this apparently simple question usually is a dozen questions rolled into one and it always leads to at least an hour long conversation with your fellow traveller. You finally part after imparting and also collecting each other's biography. And woe to you if you happen to be from the same place or community as the person who posed you the question... in that case rest assured by the end of your journey you would have compared each other's great grandmothers and their cousins thrice removed!

This question indeed gives a new meaning to that sentence in our national pledge which says... 'All Indians are my brothers and sisters'. Your questioner gets no rest and doesn't let you have any either until he has established how he is related to either you or if not that, then at least your friend or your neighbour or your milkman's brother's wife's lover!

Now I often get asked this question and I have a difficult time answering it. This is why...
Fellow Traveller (F.T): (With a smile and a look in the eye which tells me THE QUESTION is going to be thrown at me next) So, Where are you from?
Me: (looking trapped and trying to get away easy)From Bombay
F.T: (not satisfied with answer) But, where is your native place?
Me: (I know there is no escape now) Kerala
F.T: Oh, you are a mallu (short of malayalee... natives of Kerala)
Me: No, am a konkani
F.T:(baffled) Huh? (this usually demands futher explanation and unless I want to earn F.T's ire I better elaborate)
Me: My parents are born and brought up in Kerala. (Now this is an answer doomed to be followed up with the next question)
F.T: So your father is Konkani and mother is Mallu?
Me: (enjoying F.T's confusion but needing to put a stop to this '20 questions' session) No actually both are Konkanas. My mother tongue is konkani but native place is Kerala. You see, there are a lot of Konkanas in coastal Kerala and Karnataka, our ancestors fled there 500 yrs ago when the Portugese were persecuting and forcibly converting the Goan konkanas to Christianity.
F.T: (Relieved) Oh! I am from ___ and my parents have been in ___ for past ___ yrs and my grandparents are from ___ yakkity....yakkitty..yak...

This conversation is very different if F.T is also a GSB (Gowda Sarswat Brahman) Konkani. In that case F.T. will not need an explanation when I tell him my native place is Kerala but mother tongue is Konkani. He will, on hearing that am Konkani, will then methodically proceed to ask me questions as if his life depends on the answers:
Me: No, am Konkani
F.T: Oh! Amchigele ('Our people'...in konkani)
Me: (scared smile... I know what is coming next)
F.T: Me too... In fact my grandfather is M.V.Pai from Soonya Ghar (which literally translates to doghouse but actually means that the owner used to have a pet dog!). You might know him... Kelya Phadi Pai Mamu ('Banana piece' Pai uncle.. Nicknames being the primary way to identify people among the GSB community).
Me: Na (No). I have been born and brought up in Bombay
F.T:(crestfallen, I have robbed him of his delight... but the man is persistent) So what is your family called?
Me: Hod Kaaran Sanchi (From the Roof tiled house)
F.T: (Broad smile... Ecstatic and even relieved...) Oh! I know Bhangar Maamu (That is my grandpa, he is called 'Gold uncle' though his name is R.V Shenoy). In fact in that case we are related. Your grandmother's paternal uncle's eldest son is married to my maternal grandmother's cousin brother. (How on earth do these people remember such long winded relationships!?!!)
Well needless to say this is followed with the customary comparing of our respective grandmothers and all other assorted relatives, their life-stories, their dogs and their minutest idiosyncrasies!

After numerous such experiences I have reason to conclude that I can't run from the 'where-are-you-from' question even if am no longer in India. Any Indian I meet abroad and start a conversation with usually ends up at the same question. And now I am beginning to accept the question for what it is... a need to identify with every fellow Indian you meet.

India is a vast country and its diverse cultural and communal mosaic is something that only an Indian can comprehend. You don't identify with a fellow Indian by saying to yourself... 'Oh look! there is another Indian'... no sir!no ma'am! that simply does not sum it and you need more... so you ask THE QUESTION. And after establishing each other's 'where-froms' you now proceed to tell yourself 'Oh look! there is another bombayite like me' or 'there is another maharashtrian like me' or 'there is another gujju like my friend Ratanbhai'... These epithets help you connect to the individual in question in a more personal manner. You feel like you finally 'know' him or her and now you are prepared to consider the other person a part of your circle. Just knowing that the other person is an Indian is too impersonal for another Indian who is more comfortable with these little details and therefore needs these little details to be able to identify with his fellow countryman.

And if you are another Indian reading this then... 'Hmmm, Where in India are you FROM?"

And... another weekend rolls by...

2005-04-25T15:15:00.000+08:00

The weekend is gone and monday returns with a vengeance... but the only bright spot on the horizon is the holiday on May 1st... long weekend and all ...

This weekend was the typical lazy easy kind. Friday evening we tried out a new South-Indian eating place someone recommended ... Anand Bhavan oppposite to Mustafa. She assured me they served a decent Pav Bhaji. Can't tell you how disappointed I was! Needless to say this friend is not a Bombayite and hence has no idea what Pav Bhaji really tastes like. And anyways I am the one to blame, not her. Why you ask? Well...
1) Coz I expected good Pav Bhaji in a South Indian restaurant!
2) I expected a non-Bombayite to be able to judge where one can order Pav Bhaji and be assured that it will be authentic stuff and not mashed potatoes drenched in 'ghee' and pav deep fried in wott else...'ghee'.

Got back home and fought with AG... It being a given that everytime we even walk past Mustafa, we HAVE to fight... the place does bring out the worst in one and cheerfully throws in a splitting headache as a bonus. And then after patching up watched Akira Kurosawa's 'Kagemusha' or 'Shadow Warrior' (with English subtitles of course).

Kagemusha is a multi-layered movie based in 16th century Japan where clans ruled and fought each other and western influences including Christianity and muskets and feather studded hats were recent introductions. It deals with the subject of impersonation where the impersonator can never completely transform into the real man, and yet there is between the impersonator and the real person an undeniable, unexplainable bond which brings them together inspite of the vast differences in their personalities. The Takeda clan's powerful and charismatic warlord Shingen's death is kept a secret for 3 years by his clan's retainers using his double, hence the name shadow warrior. The double is a petty thief and by no means capable of carrying out a convincing deception easily. So throughout the movie the audience can see the enormous difficulty the man undergoes in carrying off his role as a titan who had been called 'an immovable mountain' by even his sworn enemies. The movie revolves around the strange relationship the shadow warrior has with his dead master. It is very well articulated in a surreal dream sequence in which the lord breaks open his burial vessel and appears dressed for war in armour and warpaint, carrying his sword, looking menacing and scary. The thief struck with terror runs from him, his feet floundering in sand dunes and water streamlets while he scrambles in search of safety and then suddenly the lord vanishes. Now the shadow is filled with a longing to find him because without the lord he has no direction and no identity and he starts looking desperately for the lord. This scene symbolically demonstrates the relationship between the warlord and his shadow.

In real life too the same scene is replayed in a different way. After Shingen dies from his wounds the thief defies the clan's elders and refuses to take on the role. He is aware of his insufficiency and also finds the crown a tad too heavy for his head to bear. For a petty, penny robber to essay the role of Japan's most powerful warlord is a herculean task and when he does finally take it on out of loyalty to the warlord, at every step he finds it difficult to carry on. Even to the end this relationship remains unchanged and 3 years later when he is no longer playing the lord's double and has suddenly lost his purpose and even his identity, he ends his life in a final display of loyalty and perhaps in a pathetic desperation to finally be one with the deception he had strived so long to keep alive. The closing scene is particularly symbolic where the shadow warrior is shown dead, with a Takeda banner floating close by but yet out of reach, in the same lake which was Shingen's final resting place... in death too the Kagemusha is bound to his master but yet he could never be the man himself.

Anyways back to the weekend... Saturday was spent at home in idle splendour! Evening met up with Mitesh and Pallab and their families over dinner at Margarita's Am not a big fan of Mexican food but these people do make some to-die-for Fajitas and great Sangria, also delectable Tiramisu.

Sunday... went for another bout of house-viewing with Clifford. This time he showed us 4 houses, 2 of them were disappointing... the condos were old and the apartments were in reproachful condition. The other 2 were quite good. One of them was on the 29th floor and has a breathtaking view! And the other had been built on the grounds which used to earlier accommodate the American embassy. In fact the colonial looking embassy building is being used as the clubhouse for the condo... hmmm... interesting place! Had lunch at Olio... they serve great linguini in cream sauce (unforgivable for someone trying to lose weight) and wicked profiteroles... yummm! Spend a few hours thereafter in the welcoming sofas in Borders. Got back home in time to catch Ramgopal Varma's 'Jungle'.

That's it! That was my weekend:( and now a long 5 day wait till another one comes by. Am such a weekend junkie. I often wish for an endless loop of Friday evening-Saturday-Sunday and friday evening again! But then I better be careful what I wish for... I might get it and then absolutely hate it!

Go, Sister Go!!

2005-04-22T14:30:00.000+08:00

I work at the Singapore location of a European multinational. Recently the CIO payed us a visit. Since it was his 1st visit here, the CIO went around meeting the team and there was the conventional introduction and handshake routine. The Chief takes one look at me and exclaims... " But you don't fit into my idea of a Technical Consultant." , 'Really', I laughed', 'So what is your idea of one?' And then I got an answer which surprisingly managed to surprise me! He said "Well, you know... you don't expect a woman as a Technical Consultant' !!!??!!

Whyever not...? I am not offended but am ... surprised, to say the least, and maybe I shouldn't be. The general perception of a Techie is this geeky guy and I am yet to come across someone who harbors a vision with a female version! And yes, in Techworld as in any other there is the proverbial gender restrictive glass ceiling the women have to contend with! I am indeed the sole woman on my team and in earlier jobs I have several times been the only woman in the entire project team.

But inspite of all this the statement was unexpected. It is certainly not unusual to see women in software or for that matter in any sphere of technology. The world is opening up for the female of our specie and it is an exciting time indeed for us. Look around you, there are thousands of women like me working in the technological industries and it is no longer a male bastion exactly. There is no dearth of examples I could give to support this statement...Lucent Technologies, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Gillette, Del Monte, Avon, Citrix all have women CIO's. Gender Equations are being re-written more rapidly than any other time in history! And why, it is not just IT, the landscape is changing radically in every profession and every field.

But then I guess I have to understand that it might yet take many more years till the fixed mindset and perceptions change, gender bastions are breached completely and the glass ceiling is shattered! Until then each of us women can enjoy the prideful joy that comes out of being a forebear for coming generations of women who will someday study the 'Glass Ceiling' as a relic of the dead culture of male dominance.

Review: Reading Lolita in Tehran

2005-04-21T16:25:00.000+08:00

Am currently engrossed in 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' by Azar Nafisi. Picked it up because I liked the description on the cover of the book. A friend just informed me it is an Amazon bestseller and well, I am not surprised. It is a well-articulated book. The author has not groped for words and settled on lesser ones for that context. But this alone is not what makes it such a brilliant book. What does is the subject or rather subjects the book deals with and the way it accomplishes then in weaving together all these different concepts into one narrative, in a most effortless and natural manner.

Nafisi read literature at Oxford, won her fellowship there and then for many years taught English literature in various universities in Tehran. She left her beloved country and now lives in Washington D.C. where she teaches at John Hopkins.

'Reading Lolita in Tehran' is a "Memoir in books" as the cover page informs me. It is, yes, a memoir put across to the reader using Nabokov, F.Scott.Fitzgerald, Henry James and Jane Austen. And its greatness lies in the stark and often harrowing realities it deals with and its success in equating these realities with fiction in literature and that too fiction like Lolita, Pride and Predjudice, Gatsby and Daisy Miller!!! But then acording to the author, their lives during the days of The Iranian Revolution "were more fictional than fiction itself".

In her book she has beautifully and astonishingly used these authors, their various writings, the characters in their books to give the reader a deeper understanding into the lives of people in Iran, the plight of its intellectuals and scholars in a world where they were becoming increasingly 'irrelevant', the struggle of its women to maintain the semblance of freedom and dignity in times when they were being vigorously suppressed, the turbulence in the country and the breakdown of its vibrant social fabric which was then rebuilt to suit the dreams of its fundamentalist rulers.

Some of the incidents Nafisi describes effected a reaction which I would normally link with a physical blow. There is one where she encounters one of her students after many years and this girl tells Nafisi about her life during the time. She had been in prison for taking part in some student demonstrations and got out "lucky" since her father was capable of weilding some influence over her jailors. But one of her friends was executed, prior to which she was raped and abused; logic being, if a woman dies a virgin she would go to heaven and since the women are in prison because of some sin/crime they have committed they don't deserve heaven!! And these girls had been mere teenagers at the time of their imprisonment! This story echoes the lives of thousands of such youth in Iran those days. Oh God!! What unimaginable horrors and what unspeakable crimes must have been inflicted upon these innocent, gentle people.

There are dozens of such paragraphs in the book which will move you to tears, touch you profoundly and disturb you too. And alongwith, Nafisi has strangely managed to give the reader a profound insight into the writings of each of the authors. I know how unusual and almost impossible it seems, this task of marrying two such disparate actions as recounting real-life horrors and literary appreciation. But therein, as I said, lies the book's brilliance.

Yunnoh... the usual!

2005-04-20T16:27:00.000+08:00

Everday I wake up
and plunge headlong
into a well of everyday moments
and at times
surface excited
over a nugget I found .

Called up Thels' last evening on my way home from the gym, we screamed the traditional hysterics... and in answer to her 'Howz you, girl?' gave her my patent... simultaneous smile+shrug+shake of head once from right to left+flippant tone saying "Yunnoh... the usual". And then the lady threw me a poser..."So what EES this 'usual'?"

Hmmm...Yeah... What does it mean? Only life in its routine glory. You know... wake up, get ready for office, get breakfast, leave for work, Work, mails, meetings, lunch, more work-mails-meetings, gym/swim/pilates, home, cook dinner, eat it, clear table, do dishes, read/TV/surf/talk about the day with AG, then zzzz... thtz it! My routine day.

The only change in this routine comes through commonplace things... the current project at work, the books am currently reading, the movie I recently watched and yes the blessed weekends. And when I put down my "usual" day in black and white like that, I am wont to exclaim, "How boring!", but then it is not so.

There are some saving graces which rescue my days from falling into the clutches of rut and humdrum. Like a lovely cool evening breeze when I walk home in the evening, a cheerful sunny day, a thrilling line, a great book, a brilliant poem, a call from an old friend, a mail from my sis, some flattering compliment from AG, a lazy weekend spent reading under a shady place and then cycling in the evening, a day at the beach, a good movie, a shopping spree, an evening spent in the city at some over-crowded, over-dressed, noisy place, some breakthrough with a problem at work, an exclamation from a friend I'm meeting after a long time- "My, you have lost so much!!'... countless such seemingly inconsequential, unimportant things.

Yes there is routine in them too, but then is it such a bad thing? Doesn't it bring some comfort, order and assurance with its steadiness? So why then do people in general, fawn over the maverick and hanker after the unpredictable? It is romantic, I confess; but heap on romanticism in the novels and ladle it on a bit sparingly in real life.

Neways routine doesn't mean boring or bland and routine never meant mediocre, though some will have you believe that! The occasional spice is good to have but not so much as to burn my tongue and kill my palate.

Atlas Shrugged

2005-04-19T21:58:00.000+08:00

Sunday... went to Kinokuniya with a definite purpose in mind... quite unlike most other weekends when AG and I walk down to Borders and browse in their aisles, laze with some books on their commodious sofas and then sit in their cafe outside, enjoying the sun and sipping on some Italian sodas.

Have been reading a friend's blog where he has made numerous references to Howard Roark and has in many a posts been ruminating over the practicality and correctness of considering Roark as the perfect Man. This triggered the urge to get my hands on Fountainhead and give it a thorough reading again. I read Ayn Rand in the wrong order... I mean, I started with 'Atlas Shrugged', moved on to 'Fountainhead', then 'We the living' and finally 'Anthem' while I have since felt the correct order would have been to start with 'We the Living', then 'Anthem', and only then graduate to Fountainhead' and cap it with 'Atlas Shrugged'. But what I did do right was... I read Ayn Rand at the right phase in life. In college, at 16 when you are still quite idealistic, untouched by cynicism, Ayn Rand's Objectivism seems like the gospel. I was an instant and fervent convert.

I read A.S in one sitting, well almost. The colossal 1200 pgs novel, I devoured in a day and a half and a sleepless night. And after that for the next couple of months I went around reading excerpts from it to whoever I could corner into listening... family, friends, Dad's visitors, strangers in the train, bus lines, libraries. I would bring the book to the dinner table every night and proceed to read from whichever section I was analysing then. Finally my dad had to put his foot down and forbid me to drag the book to our family dinners. But since my 1st love affair with it, I have always greedily grasped at the smallest of opportunity to be able to discuss or discourse on it.

After 'Atlas Shrugged', 'Fountainhead' was too tame and I accorded it 2nd rung status and after reading it once went back to A.S. In fact I remember how bowled over I was when I read the significance behind the name of the book.

Coming back to the present, after reading all those posts on Roark, off I went and bought both Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged... my 2nd set of copies. My 1st I had to give away when I moved and I still mourn the loss. And now I am waiting to finish my current books to then devote my reading time wholly to Rand.

Lady Lazarus

2005-04-17T12:04:00.000+08:00

Eureka! Made a happy mistake by strolling into some hitherto ignored section of the library and bumped into rows of classics, poems and travelogues. So now I can head straight to this rather sidetracked and relatively empty section of the library and revel in such august company as Pablo Neruda, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, Phil Larkin...
But will remember to not neglect my earlier haunt of popular fiction. After all that is where I discovered Sebastian Faulks though he, in my opinion, has earned his place among the greats by penning his World War I triology comprising of 'Birdsong', 'Charlotte Gray' and 'The girl at Lion D'Or'. Also that is where I found the rest of the novels by Joanne Harris. Prior to coming to Singapore I had read the partly autobiographical 'Chocolat' and loved it.

Currently am drowning in Sylvia Plath... for there is no other word to describe the effect her poems have on one. She needs to be read with a complete surrender of one's senses to the reading of her poems. And this is the only way, I can begin to comprehend her. Having had a boringly normal life, her poems are to me, of another world. My first introduction to her was through 'Mirror' , which I read in school and which is a rather straightforward poem compared to the rest of her writings, then 'Lesbos', which made me curious to know more about this neurotic, hate-filled poet.

'Lady Lazarus' alludes to her near-death accident when she was 10 and her 2 unsuccessful suicide attempts in a wry, self-deprecating manner ('Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.' ) . But this poem is not just that, it has multiple layers and covers a plethora of emotions. She self-congratulates ('I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it'), horrifies, fascinates with her numerous skilful imageries, dramatizes ('It's easy enough to do it in a cell. It's easy enough to do it and stay put. It's the theatrical ') , rants at her spectators, and finally alludes that she will try again to kill herself, because as she says, it is her calling but then she seems to be confident that she will fail yet again for like a cat she has nine lives or as she so brillantly put it 'like the cat I have nine times to die'!! This is a difficult and disturbing poem to put oneself through and one emerges out of it gasping and horrified and yes, marvelling at Plath's genius.

Twenty-Six years

2005-04-16T08:31:00.000+08:00

All these years
where have you been...
living in a hut on the hill?
growing in a pot on the windowsill?

Twenty-six years
and nothing to show for it!
no fame, no name, no memories,
no high, no sky, no glories

Twenty-six years
and where have you been
no footsteps to show
and no kingdom to go

Where did you send
those dreams you had borne...
How did u slay?
or did u cast them away?

Huge Dreams, Starry Eyes
Rainbow Gold and Big Dough
Did u let them die?
Feed them slow poison or a lie?

When you look back
you have no clue
where those years went.
Wasted, in vain, spent.

You see them lain behind
"Come back", You cry "you are mine"
"C'est la vie", they say
then they shrug and go away.

Born in 1979 BC

2005-04-15T13:37:00.000+08:00

Woke up with a start today when the 2nd alarm went off. I usually don't even hear the 1st. AG, poor guy, has to shut it off. He then lies in bed twisting and turning until the 2nd alarm rings which usually means "if-you-don't-get-off-that-damn-bed-now-u're-gonna-be-late!!" Silenced it as well and promptly went back to sleep.

And now am late!! Worse... have forgotten my cellphone at home :( It was only after boarding the bus to work that I realised it! By then I was left with 2 choices:
1) Beg the driver to stop the bus and let me go
2) Sit put
And so there I sat with dismay writ on my face and looking like I am going to get my tooth out!

After work today I have my Pilates class, so by the time I see my phone again it will be 8:30 in the evening and God alone knows how many calls I will miss until then.
To think that I got a cellphone just 4 years back and to think that I spend almost half my life without even a landline at home (We got our phone connection when I was 12!) ... and now I am going to spend a day in agony just because I forgot my phone at home!

We have indeed come a long way from the days of trunk call and MTNL (Mera Telephone Nahin Lagta) to cellphones which are phones and hand held computers and mp3 players and gameboys and digital cameras and video cameras all rolled in one. You can chat/sms/mms/buy n' sell/surf/check scores/read books/shoot movie clips/listen to music/check events and a hundred such activities which you wouldn't have dreamt of doing with your humble phone a few years back. Now only if it could cook too!

About 12 years ago getting a landline meant booking a phone connection and then unless you know someone influential or can dole out an astronomical bribe, waiting a couple of years until your turn comes up. And hey! even then thank your stars if your phone worked 10 days out of 20. Come monsoon with the slightest of drizzles and your ugly black phone would end up merely as an ornamental addition to your living room. Those days STD meant booking a trunk call and then waiting with bated breath for the better part of the day for the call to come through. And if your need was urgent you could try the lightning call which would burn a hole in your pocket.

In contrast, on my last visit to India I saw kids toting their brand new Motorola clamshells and Sony P900's to school. We have come a long way indeed and compared to these techie-wiz teenagers I have started to feel like a dinosaur! Come to think of it, for me BC is Before Christ and for them it is Before Cellphones!

I can never make up my mind

2005-04-14T15:52:00.000+08:00

Ah! Fickle Fickle life

Making me breathe
On the edge of a knife
Now you like peace and...
now you like strife

Now you like virtue
and then you want sin.
Now you don't mind losing
now you'd kill to win!

Now you want to work hard
and now you wanna idle.
Now you like the bitch look
and now it's virgin bridal.

Now you love Harry
and then you adore Al.
Now you hate tomorrow
and now you're best of pals.

Come come, my dear now
can't you just stay put,
for once stand your ground,
for once put down your foot.

Summer Hols and Nostalgia

2005-04-13T15:30:00.000+08:00

When I was younger and still in school, every summer vacation my sister and I would be dragged by our mother for our yearly 2 month stay to our native place in Kerala. Now you have to understand, Kerala of those days is a long cry away from the Kerala of now and a further cry away from Bombay which is where we used to live. Kerala is full of picturesque villages by the sea or a lagoon and thatched or tile roofed cottages surrounded by acres of courtyard, endless seas of paddy fields, thousands of nodding coconut trees, men in mundus (dhotis) and girls in pavaddai (long skirts), huge temples, ponds, wells, tiny boats, small dusty roads, lemonade stalls selling extra sweet lemonade, beedis and banana fritters. And now picture Bombay...with its busy roads, busy people, concrete jungles, planned housing societies, matchbox sized flats, sound pollution, air pollution...

In those days getting to Kerala meant a 2 night travel in the sleeper class compartments of "Jayanti Janata" which was what used to run between Bombay and Kanyakumari in the days before Konkan Railway was born. Dad would usually join us later for a week or so and hence the train travel was under the watchful eyes of Mom who would cook and pack food and fried snacks to suffice us the duration of the travel. At the end of the train journey on the 3rd day, in the wee hours of the morning, sis and me used to emerge excited, sleepy eyed, dirty, hoarse(having played 'antakshari' for 2 whole days at the top of our voices) and best pals with the kids in the neighbouring cubicles of our compartment. The after effects of the long train travel persisted the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon during which time S and me both would feel as if our whole body is still swaying and the train's 'chug-chug-chug' would still echo in our ears.

The next 2 months would be heavenly... no homework, no studies, no exams, no tests, no ear-twisting. Mom could not scold/punish us since we had our grandparents and uncles and aunts to save us from her wrath. We would spend these months being spoilt by a clan of relatives.

My grandma owned a cow which she used to milk every morning around 5:30. I would wake up early and go help her, by holding the tail of the cow to prevent her from swishing it at Grandma and fanning the cow so that no flies would disturb her calm. After this chore and some strong hot coffee (no Bournvita!!) I would go help Grandpa pick cashews in the orchard... this was one of my favorite things to do... Grandpa and I would walk for hours and he would tell me stories from his youth and also of my Dad's childhood days.

After lunch when everybody would be inside enjoying their afternoon siestas and escaping the sun I would play by myself with my imaginary pets (I had a dog and a horse), read a book by the pond, climb trees, eat mangoes, talk to the calf, sketch, write long letters to my school friends and dad, rummage in the attic for my dad's comics or just sit and watch an army of ants or spiders going about their business.
Summer vacations were also the times to watch Amitabh movies and Tom and Jerry cartoons in an endless loop, eat hundreds of mangoes/guavas/jackfruits, play in the sand and drink gallons of Rasna.

Every evening Grandma would light the 'diya' at the altar and me and my cousins would all sit down and sing our repertoire of bhajans at ear-splitting volumes. I remember the evening power cuts which were spend playing cards or carroms or better still sitting out in the garden under the endless skies, surrounded by the perfumes wafting from the Jasmine, Parijatha, Mogra bushes and watching dozens of fireflies twinkling all around, lying in Grandma's lap while she fanned me with her antiquated fan and listen to stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

As I write this am slowly overpowered by the memories of those days, the food, the smells, the sounds, the stories, laughter, games, fights... how lucky I am to have had these experiences, to have had the chance to enjoy these simple things and to now have such powerful and lucid memories which I can recall whenever I wish.

And I pity the present generation of kids. Them with all their electronic toy marvels, their Mc Donald's happy meals, E-story books, Cable Television, Air conditioned malls, Video Games, X-boxes, Mp3 players and low fare domestic flights! They have no clue what they are missing!!

That bird called Hope

2005-04-12T17:24:00.000+08:00

Wotta delighful day! And all because I got lucky!

Was trying to remember this particular paragraph in Emily's Quest by Lucy Maud Montgomery of the famous Anne of Green Gables Series when I came across Project Gutenberg! It has a vast collection of ebooks and here's the best part ... all of them are freely downloadable!

There is also another site hosted by Project Gutenberg, supposedly for books with an 'Australian' flavor... but I found some non-Australian flavored books here which I couldn't spot at the site in United States. If you know of any more such sites please let me know.

Anyways back to the paragraph I couldn't remember, here it is ...
Once, when Emily had been very small, living with her father down in the little old house at Maywood, where he had died, she had started out to seek the rainbow's end. Over long wet fields and hills she ran, hopeful, expectant. But as she ran the wonderful arch was faded--was dim--was gone. Emily was alone in an alien valley, not too sure in which direction lay home. For a moment her lips quivered, her eyes filled. Then she lifted her face and smiled gallantly at the empty sky.

"There will be other rainbows," she said.

Emily was a chaser of rainbows.

This paragraph was the author's attempt to introduce the reader to Emily. And somehow years after I last read the book, I keep remembering this paragraph. Maybe because I identify with it. Even when I first read it, the paragraph had jumped out of the page and shaken hands with me... I understood Emily, after reading 2 pages full of how Emily 'looks', this paragraph was the actual introduction. Not only because like her I was a chaser of rainbows, but also because through this hopeless chase for the seemingly un-catchable and the unattainable I never lose hope.

I have always been an optimist... incurably so. Yes, I do get pulled under and I do get depressed over events, slights, fights ... but eventually and always, my undying hopefulness pulls me up. AG always says that every person has a keyword he/she lives by and mine is 'extremes' :) or as Thels' puts it ... "passion".

When I am sad I am in the depths of sorrow, over the smallest of things, I grieve like I have been struck by a tragedy. And when I am happy I am ecstatic... again the teeniest of happenings is capable of lifting me to the zeniths of joydom.

I consider it as providence... this gift of mine to grieve and let go and then look forward... always look ahead to possibilities. To take failures, disappointments in my stride and then say to myself ... "Hmmm, what can I do to get me outta this? what can i do to make things better? Surely there is a way."

Strange girl she is ... this Hope! Living on the edges within grab's reach...

The Lotus Eater

2005-04-11T13:47:00.000+08:00

A weekend of inaction(on the exercise front and on work front as well) and now inertia is mistress. Having dragged myself to work, I did get through most of my monday morning to-do's but afternoon was a different beast altogether. I had to prop up my eyelids with matchsticks and drink a gallon of expresso.

But at the end of the day I have raised a coupla issues regarding the current project on my plate to the functional chap. Result: Now until they are resolved the halt signal is up on the said project. (grinning wickedly as i write this)

Looking forward to the gym though. Past 5 months have turned me into this weightloss-tips-and-trivia encyclopedia. Having lost 5 kgs (almost 12lbs), I have not stoppped patting myself on the back for it and am now dispensing expert advise to anybody who asks for it (and some who don't but look like they could use it!!) Another 3 kgs off and I hope to be a poster babe for those before and after thingys they put on these weightloss ads which keep popping up ever so often and everywhere. So much so that inspite of watching the idiot box sparingly I am still not able to escape them!

Actually am a 'Discovery Travel and Living' junkie. I can watch that channel endlessly and through numerous re-telecasts! Most buses in Singapore have a TV and if I am lucky, on my way back home I get to watch Jamie Oliver lisping through some exotic dish. But downside is, each morning I am subjected to morning news against my wishes. As a rule I avoid watching news in the morning. Most days I read it online to get my fix of current affairs and trivia. But watching the news on TV is something I could live without. Endless scenes of destruction, civil war, terrorism, murders, ... all of them guaranteed to depress you before the day has even begun.

Call me a Lotus Eater if you wish but I would rather avoid things I do not have the power to influence or control. Daily exposure to the rising tsunami death toll affected me so much, I had begun to have sleepless nights. I would lie awake tortured by visions of 100 foot waves rushing in through our window (We live by the sea). And then one day I felt this tremor as I was working. When I asked my colleague whether he felt it too, he gave me this amused look which made me feel like Chicken Little would have after realising the sky is after all firmly up where it was.

That's when the no-morning-news rule was born. I would rather live behind my rose-tinted glasses than end up as this psychoneurotic chicken-little.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Saturday Night Fun

2005-04-10T12:14:00.000+08:00

Watched 'Sahara' on Friday... the premier show at 11:15! Disappointing movie... though I got my VFM feasting my eyes on the hunky Matthew McConaughey, But methought the whole story was more suited to be a cartoon-strip for children... all the unbelievable stuff that kept happening!

Neways prior to the movie AG and I had thrown our diet sensibilities to the wind and gorged on some great Indian food. So inspite of the movie our friday was not wasted!

Saturday morning was spent in house-hunting! We are planning to move soon... and the search has just begun. But our requirement specifications are a bit too elaborate so am keeping my fingers crossed! I do love to house-hunt though. Our agent has this lovely Alfa Romeo and we went around in it looking at all kinds of houses. But each one seemed to have some issue with it which made it unsuitable. One was too small, another was boxed in between other tall buildings, so the view was ruined, a third was nice, good layout, big enough but had atrocious bathrooms... terrible color scheme, the fourth was too close to a construction site and had the signs of another construction work starting on the other side of it. Hopefully Clifford (our agent) will come up with something better next Saturday.

In the evening we met Karthik for dinner at this brilliant Mexican place called Cafe Iguana at Clark Quay which has a great view of the river, fabulous ambience (y'day there were a dozen girls celebrating a hen's party... so all of them in shocking pink or blue retro wigs and the would-be bride in a huge lacy veil... all drunk and boisterous :) , good food and the best part ... these people brew their own beer!!!

After dinner we moved on to tcc to have some coffee, and then walked to Esplanade. On the way we stopped to watch the reverse bungy in action... which first catapults some very brave (or very stupid) people to a height of 60 metres and then simply drops them down... it subjects you to this not once (like the conventional bungee) but a number of times trying its very best to persuade you to give up ghost midway or at least rain some questionable liquid down on the sadists below who gather to watch you go through this ordeal and smirk at your plight!

But today has been rather quiet. My plans of going to Sentosa have not materialized. It being too humid and too warm to be suitable for picnicking.

Sunday is almost over... and monday blues have already started to set in! Am off to wallow in some self-pity. Ciao...

TGIF!

2005-04-08T12:12:00.000+08:00

Oh! what a lovely day ... I love Friday's. I bask in them, I smile wider, laugh louder and work lesser ;)

And today the WeatherGod seems to realise it is Friday ... The sky is bluer but not too sunny. After the downpours we have been having, I was afraid the weekend is going to be washed away as well. It might be too early to say this, but I am hopeful of the weather holding up. And if it does AG and I could picnic at Sentosa on Sunday!

Long time since we went there. Sentosa is this island right across from our place. It is a major tourist attraction with lovely beaches, cool beachside bars, cycling/skating tracks. Of course there is more to attract tourists, the Underwater world, Dolphin Lagoon etc... But these touristy things are not what attract us to the island. We go there mainly to sit under the kingsize sheltered benches by the sea and read till it is cooler and then go cycling or sit on the beach.

We go there by moonlight as well, to enjoy the breeze and sea and drink some coffee under the stars on the wooden deck they have there. There is a floating restaurant nearby which plays lovely music that comes wafting to the deck benches. The perfect place to sit in companionable silence and at times reminisce of our courtship days.

Isn't is ironic how we look back on the past and sigh... 'How lovely those days were!'. And forget to say the same of the present. 2 years later I will look back on these very days and sigh longingly...

Well no more of rue... I am going to enjoy TODAY and revel in my good fortune!

And meanwhile I do hope the weather holds!

It is not like I don't like the rain. I love to get drenched. It is a beautiful experience!

These are the things I like to do when it rains:
1) Get drenched
2) Eat an ice-cream while getting drenched
3) Read a book by the window
4) Listen to old tracks
5) Go for a long drive along some countryside
6) Sit by a village pond and watch the fishes
7) Drink strong coffee
8) Eat a hot meal
9) Take a cold shower
10) Dance
11) Sing
12) Laugh
13) Sit by the window and look out and dream (I love it all the more when the mynahs take shelter on the ledge. They scold away as you dream.)
14) Play in the puddles with some kids
15) Go to the beach and watch the choppy sea
16) Eat lots of Pani Puris (Golgappas for the non-bombayites)... spicy enough to have tears rolling down my cheek but sweet enough to leave a nice aftertaste.

There!!... after listing all that out... I don't mind so much if it rains. I am just going to enjoy the weekend no matter what!!

All play and no work

2005-04-07T09:36:00.000+08:00

Yaaaaawwwwwwwwn..... This has been my reaction every single morning this whole week.

Last weekend was a long one (Thanks to Easter!!). AG and me had been to this island resort in Malaysia called Pangkor Laut Resort. Island Paradise .... more like it! We stayed in villas built on stilts in the sea. The whole of last week was spend in anticipation of the vacation and looks like the whole of this week will be spend getting over the hangover (hangover... not as in post-alcoholic but as in post-amazingly-relaxing-send-u-in-a-haze-vacation hangover). Hence the yawn. But coming back to the resort... it had the best spa this side of the world and AG and me indulged ourselves with an Ayurvedic spa treatment session.

The trip from Singapore to the resort was quite tiring ... home-cab to Changi Airport- flight to KL International Airport-cab to KL domestic airport-flight to Pangkor island-cab to Pangkor jetty-ferry to Pangkor Laut island.... phew! On arrival we were greeted by some indignant and annoyed resort residents... a flock of peacocks!!

When we were shown to our villa... it took my breath away... the villa and the endless sea laid out beneath it! You could hear the sea ceaselessly but gently lapping at the beach in the distance. The bedroom opened out to a patio and the bathroom had a garangutan bath with a picture hanging beside it...and lo! the picture moved... AG thought his eyes were playing tricks on him and then it hit him ... it was not a picture at all... the bath had a view of the sea!! We had the most amazing view from the villa and what was more was you could enjoy it in your bath with some excellent wine and juicy mangoes! Our villa was perched at edge of a walkway on stilts and right into the sea. The bathroom had a window extending along the breadth which opened out to the sea. Oooooh!!

Our side of the island had been converted into a spa village with numerous spa treatment huts, spa facilities, an infinity pool, some structures which looked like treehouses, some massage huts which were on the beach and where you could get your massage while watching the sea or curl up in the afternoon with a book in hand. Outside the spa village there were the other resort facilities including a few restaurants and other villas, tennis courts more pools, gym, sauna, jacuzzi etc. On the other side of the island was Emerald Bay with a beach which AG and me didn't like too much. We ended up spending the next 4 days in the pool and then stretched out under the beach parasols tanning ourselves to a unhealthy nut brown! (the upside is ...our teeth look much whiter now!!)

Every morning I would get up early to sit on the patio and watch the sea stretched out below me... I spotted quite a few flying fish (actually just normal fish which jump out and dive in to catch the smaller fish). Then there were the small sunbirds which sat companionably on the patio railing and chattered with me. And then for no apparent reason got bored and flew away. Their flight was quite amusing to watch... they would take off soar and then dip, soar and dip ....

Nighttime too had its own brand of magic to weave. Our 3rd night on the island was a full moon night and one can never successfully describe the glory of a full moon shining above with the sea stretched out below as far as the eyes can see.

During our stay we also saw a couple of monitor lizards. These creatures are emperors among lizards... the largest of the species... you could mistake them for baby crocs. But they are gentle creatures and can lie still for unbelievably long durations at a time. Also spotted a whole extended family of hornbills (didn't know they existed in the wild, thought you could only see them in birdparks!)

Here's a monitor lizard:

These are some pictures we took of the place:

These are the spa villas. Ours was the one farthest away, in the middle.

This is the bath and you can see the "picture" over it!

And this is the view from the bath early in the morning!

And above is a pic of the pool by the sea

Of opening lines...

2005-04-06T12:12:00.000+08:00

Taking off from my last post ...

Opening lines sure are elusive things... You spend hours mentally hunting one down and have nothing to show for it. And then there are times you write half a dozen pages without a single break just because one brilliant line came visiting.

Some lines just step out of mundanity and stick to you forever... popping up everytime the context suits them and at times even when it doesn't.

So yesterday after the 'first post-first line' struggle I sat me down and listed out lines which I have read, liked and then carried with me through the years.

There is this 2nd paragraph of 'Angela's ashes' ... "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood". I still remember how on reading it the 1st time I was quite amused... I wondered what made the author write something like this. At that time I had no clue of how difficult life was in Ireland in that era. Reading the book was an education to that end.

The next one that came to mind (maybe becoz in some ways it is on the same lines) is the opening line of 'Anna Karenina' ..."Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I read this book when I was too young to appreciate it fully. I was around 11 or 12 years old! And then I reread it a few years later. Can't remember much of it now (time for another read!) but what still lingers with me is the feel of the story, the social fabric that was described so tangibly by Tolstoy and the sorrow one feels for Anna. I still remember the 1st scene of the book, where Anna gets off the train, as if I had seen it in some long forgotten 60's movie (though I haven't, all I have done is read the book). That scene is one of the finest introductions to a character... Anna emerges to the reader as this charming and fascinating woman who has a lot of poise, an innate sense of style and an admirable amount of self-confidence. She is the kind of woman who generates respect among total strangers.

And how can one forget the 1st line in 'Pride and Predjudice'. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" This one novel alongwith 'Little Women' are books which are in the most sorry state amongst all others in my bookshelf. There was a time when everyday after coming home from school I used to take either one of them with me to read at lunch.

I do so love the poem 'Law of the jungle' in 'The Jungle Book' by Rudyard Kipling, especially the 1st 2 lines:
"Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die."
I love the use of the words "may" and "must" in the 2nd line to show how imminent the death of a law-breaker is :) as if it is some royal decree! It emphasis that death is the undeniable, unescapable fate of someone who dares break the law. The last 2 lines are quite amazing too, they go like this...
"Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is -- Obey!"
In fact the whole poem is quite brilliant and like all other Kipling poems has great rythm and like most of his poems it rhymes beautifully.

'Jungle Book' like so many good timeless children's books is a classic which can be enjoyed by children of all ages... And at every stage in your life when you read it, there is a new takeaway for you. Another one of this genre which is also among my all time favorites is Antoine de Saint Exupery's 'Le Petit Prince'. This little book (it is less than 150 pgs!!) is full of powerful one liners which will make you stop midway to admire the simple truth they convey with such clarity. As the book puts it ... "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye."
One of my favorite sentences in this book is "It is such a secret place, the land of tears" And how true. Even in the very same situation the sorrow 2 people face is different. The land of tears is indeed a place where each man ventures alone.
'The Animal Farm' is yet another book which I count among the 2 above, and this maybe misguided, because I don't know whether Animal farm is really meant to be a children's book. But I read it as a child and liked it, even though the underlying concept was lost on me until I read it again recently.

Among the various books am reading currently there is 'The Famished Road' by Ben Okri which has a remarkable and rather unusual set of lines... . "In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry." This book deals with the central myth in Nigerian folklore of the abiku, the spirit-child, which exists between life and death. This book is not a conventional narration but an attempt to explain an entire way of life and a culture... It brings to mind the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez who through his books lays open to the reader an entire people and an entire country... a task so daunting and so herculean and one he accomplishes so admirably well.

Speaking of famous/unforgettable lines, one book that seems to be abounding in them is Mario Puzo's 'Godfather'. The 1st time I read it I finished it in 1 sitting... starting at around 12:30 one night and finishing at 6:30 the next morning, when mom came to wake me up for school. The book cast some spell on me! Since then I have reread it numerous times. I love the way the story moves...so slick and so fast... not a wasted word. And every character is so well etched. Mario Puzo must have been possessed by something unexplainable when he wrote that story extraordinaire. Coz he could never recreate the magic. After Godfather I read all his other books and forgave him every single one of them!

And now that I have poked around a hundred such lines have come tumbling out... i'd better stem the flow and stop here else i would be up the whole night and then some more!!

Hello World

2005-04-05T15:50:00.000+08:00

My very first blog and have spend an entire morning (at work ;) coming up with a title for this post and a gripping opening line. The best I could do was the quintessential "Hello World" . And this from someone who has always prided on being a writer yet to be discovered! And you don't even want to know the opening lines my mind kept throwing at me.

But then look at the brighter side (depends on whose side you are, I guess)...
finally ... have arrived!
after reading countless blogs written by the whole world and his dog and each of these times being inspired to start one of my own (though i wonder why anyone would want to read it!!) ... this time i have really done it !

but the blogworld is full of a gazillion bloggers and megazillion blogs which even their own creators write and then forget. have oftentimes wondered why the popularity and influx?!

i do hope though that unlike all other pet projects of mine, this one too doesn't lose its grip on me. We'll see...